Vacation-blogging: New Hope

Yesterday my vacation started, and I've already settled into an acceptance that I don't actually *have* to go to work this week. This realization comes hard to me, and requires several beers and book purchases to completely come to grips with, to which end I and the spouse sojourn to New Hope . It's basically our favorite book, beer, and shopping daytrip. Naturally, I had to buy a thing or two besides books and beer: I got a Bliss massively huge exfoliating rosemary, spearmint, etc. shower bar and some Mario Badescu toner from A Beautiful Life, and also some jewelry.

{Note: I have a simply huge, perhaps embarrassingly so, jewelry collection. I have all the symptoms of a jewelry fiend--a veritable monomaniac. I have no particular favorite style or stone or piece--my collection ranges from costume to precious to antique. I have bronze rings and bracelets from Rome, beads of Babylon, lapis from Afghanistan. I can just about match my jewelry purchases to whatever my current reading craze is however: antiquities come from my "ancient history" period, chunky modern metallic things from more tech-oriented sf, and my recent interest in more recent historical fiction (The Baroque Cycle from Neal Stephenson, and also his The Diamond Age, of A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer--about which--more, later) has led me to fancy pearls. So I got an opera-length strand with a melange of potato and seed freshwater pearls mixed with silver and crystal, and a matching set of dangle earrings. OH! for a proper digital camera to share them with you, Gentle Reader--suffice it to say, they are charming.}

But books I did indeed get, at Farley's Bookshop . I got Gibson & Sterling's The Difference Engine, and Turtledove's Ruled Britannia. Here is a thing I have noticed as being unique about your independent booksellers, as opposed to the major chains: from the major chains, you *are* likely to find the book you were looking for; but at an independent, you're liable to find a book you weren't exactly looking for, but one that absolutely suits what you would like to read--perhaps a book that was looking for *you* to read *it*. As might not surprise anyone hearing I've only just started reading Stephenson, you will be unsurprised I've not read any Gibson. Cracking The Difference Engine whilst sitting on a bench and occasionally viewing the ducks along the banks of the Delaware was most pleasant.

And now, for beer: I went to one of my favorite Brewpubs, Triumph . This week, they're having an Oktoberfest menu--this is useful info for the, like, one person out of the dozen who might see my blog this week who is actually anywhere in driving distance: but totally, it is some good eats! I myself got the butcher platter which was bratwurst, knockwurst, and weiswurst paired with a chutney of sorts and a delicious mustard (I opted to have braised cabbage & German Potato salad as sides--my dining companion had braised lamb with spaetzle and braised cabbage)--a hearty repast pleasantly enjoyed out-of-doors with their seasonal Maerzen (Oktoberfest--what else?) and we also enjoyed their Kolsch. They simply always have interesting food and good beer--but the German menu (how did I fail to mention the cold potato and leek soup? which was as thick as a dip for bread and crudites--which in its insidious creamy dippability made me eat the better part of the assorted bread basket?) was excellent.

{An interesting side note about dining al fresco at Triumph--there is a wonderful railroad hard by the dining area, which is fun to watch and lends a certain old-time charm to the experience--there *is* something about a train that's magic and all. The station house there plays a kind of ragtime music (think: long, insinuatingly charming horns, syncopated rhythms, which, when enjoyed within sight of the rails and with a glass of very good beer on hand, transports one in time.) But also, outside of the station, there are arcade entertainments, a very small, coin-operated merry-go-round, a pinball machine, and a first-person shooter arcade game of more recent vintage, which periodically emits a modern, maybe more post-grunge, beat--the scrap it plays reminds me a bit of the bass line of Alien Ant Farm's version of "Smooth Criminal". This makes for a really neat mash-up. One rarely feels the impulse to thrash to "Minnie the Moocher." I dug it.}

Quite a good time was had.