North America

Kauai

Posted by Jim St. George on July 23, 2023
Posted in: North America, USA. 1 comment

Anita, Al, Mark, Sierra, and Tommy getting ready to head up the trail along the Napali Coast

As Mark may have mentioned, this is our third-ever trip to Hawaii, and somehow I’d never really appreciated the islands on the previous two trips. We’ve done Oahu and Maui and I could never quite understand why everyone else was so enamored of the place. Well, our three days on Waikiki Beach – at the same hotel we’d stayed at in 2016 – displayed some of the magic that others love but I’d somehow missed. And five days on Kauai, the smallest of the four major islands, clinched it. I’m now a big Hawaii fan.

The main priority for our time on Kauai was to visit my brother and his wife, Al & Anita. They have not one, not two, but three rental properties up in Princeville (which have five-star reviews on VRBO; just sayin’) on the northern coast of the island. For years they’ve been inviting us out to visit and once we’d made the decision to go to French Polynesia it was a no-brainer to include time with them.

Sunrise from Al & Anita’s lanai in Princeville. Kind of stunning, huh?

A rainbow – OK, two rainbows! – later the same day

While we were still on Oahu when we would mention that we were going to Kauai people would get almost misty-eyed describing the peace and beauty of the island. And they weren’t wrong. The island is almost impossibly green with beaches seemingly everywhere. And when you’re with locals, or at least quasi-locals, there are a lot of things to do.

First, of course, there are the beaches. We spent a fair amount of time at Hanalei Beach, first introduced to me many decades ago by Peter, Paul, & Mary, the land where Puff the Magic Dragon lived. And yes, from a distance you can see where the ridge of hills looks like a lying dragon. Who knew it was a real place? Tunnels Beach was another highlight, and it seemed as though every conversation started with “Well, we could go to such-and-such beach,” with a discussion of the relative merits of the parking, surf, crowd, etc.

Sunset on Hanalei Beach

Another great beach was Hanakaipi’Ai, but the real attraction there was the start of a stunning trail along the Napali Coast. Na Pali in Polynesian means “high cliffs” and that kind of makes sense. The cliffs climb from sea level as high as 4,000 feet, making for stunning views, every bit as gorgeous as hiking the Amalfi Coast (though to be honest the perfect little cafés you find on the latter are missing here…). So we hiked a challenging two miles up and over some of the cliffs to another beach before turning around and coming back.

Tommy & Sierra on the hike

Mark, too!

Then the next day we saw it from another perspective, joining a boat excursion to see the entire 17-mile length of the Coast. Again, stunning and admittedly easier than hiking. Our boat was a surprisingly large zodiac, kind of an inflatable thing that in our experience was always smaller and less user-friendly. In this case it had reasonably comfortable benches and even a bathroom. Oh, and we managed to sail along the biggest pod of dolphins I’d ever seen. That and a stop for snorkeling off Tunnels Beach made for a great outing.

Here we are sitting on the zodiac with the cliffs of Napali behind us

And of course the real highlight of the trip was hanging out with Al & Anita and (in much shorter bursts) their daughter Sierra and her boyfriend Tommy. Somehow the latter two thought of better things to do than hanging out with her parents and old uncles. Beyond all the activities and everything, just hanging out on their lanai looking over the ocean, enjoying meals and all, was great fun.

So Kauai is pretty great. It’s worth mentioning, I guess, that all that greenery around the island suggests that perhaps it rains sometimes. And indeed, there were regular little spritzes all through the day. It would be perfectly beautiful on the beach one minute and five minutes later you’d notice that it had started sprinkling. And then five minutes later sunny again. Sometimes it was annoying but almost never would it be raining hard enough to really interrupt your day. Mostly it just added to the charm of the place. Mostly.

Al on Tunnels Beach. You learned to adjust to the changing weather.

And just like that I’ve become a fan of Hawaii. Good thing, because we’re headed back to Waikiki for a couple days before heading off to Tahiti. And after that we have 10 days on the Big Island. Good thing I’ve learned to love it!

The view down to Hanalei Beach. Somewhere off in the distance you can see the dragon pointing out to sea, though it’s not particularly obvious in this picture.

A view from the hike along the Napali Coast

Another view from the hike

Mark at the beach after the two-mile hike along the coast. The beach had a name, though I don’t exactly remember it now.

And me…

Activities for the week included a bonfire with Al & Anita’s friends Lanie & Sean. Lanie, it turns out, was a master fire-builder.

Dolphins on our zodiac tour of the coast. This picture doesn’t really do justice to just how many of them there were.

Exiting a cave during the boat tour. The little cousins sitting in front of me were so much fun to watch as they squealed in delight. And they totally reminded me of our niece and nephew Leigh and Jamal, 15 or 20 years ago!

More cave pictures

The Napali Coast

Mark with an uncharacteristically colorful shirt enjoying our cruise

Al & Anita at sunset

Honolulu

Posted by Mark Sullivan on July 18, 2023
Posted in: USA. 2 comments

Jim luxuriating in the gorgeous water of Waikiki Beach

We are back on the road again, escaping the heat and humidity of New York summer. June in New York is pretty nice — just what you’d like summer to be. And this year June was really lovely. But the minute the calendar turns to July, a hellish blanket of humidity suddenly descends on the city, and you want out. This year we decided to escape to a beautiful corner of the world that has so far eluded us — French Polynesia.

Now French Polynesia is quite a trek from New York, so we decided to break up the trip with stops in Hawaii, both coming and going. The idea was to avoid connecting flights to the degree possible. So on the way to the South Pacific we decided to spend some time in Kauai, where Jim’s brother Albert has a vacation home. And on the way home, we’ll spend time on the Big Island. Previous trips have taken us to Maui and Oahu, so now we’ll have explored all four major islands of the Aloha State.

Our journey began with an 11-hour flight from JFK to Honolulu. In the spirt of avoiding connecting flights, we decided to recharge in Honolulu for a few days before catching an easy flight to Kauai.

This is our third visit to Honolulu, and the place has grown on us with each stay. In fact, we behaved like extreme creatures of habit this time. We stayed at the same hotel as last time. We ate at a restaurant we loved the last time — all three nights! And we spent both full days sitting on the beach at Waikiki and having lunch at the hotel restaurant that we enjoyed so much the last time. If it works, don’t fix it!

The view from our room at the Hawaiian Palace, an old classic with lots of charm and lots of pink

We love lunch at the outdoor bar at the Royal Hawaiian, where everything is extremely pink, especially Jim

The water at Waikiki Beach is so warm and beautiful

Dinner at Hy’s, a steakhouse with old world charm, friendly service, and great food

If you have dinner three nights in a row at the same place, you get to know Sarah the bartender pretty well

Jim’s view at the beach

Breakfast at the pink palace that is the Royal Hawaiian

Home for a Month

Posted by Jim St. George on September 19, 2022
Posted in: New York (Home), North America, USA. Leave a Comment

Mark & I made a quick trip to DC while we were home and made a quick stop at Logan Circle, where we’d lived for a few years in the 1990s. Back then this park was all drug dealers and prostitutes but it’s such a beautiful and peaceful place now.

We loved our eight-week summer vacation in Europe, but we were excited to come home, too. The odd thing was that we knew we’d only be back for a month, as we had made plans to go to Germany with friends for Oktoberfest. But we packed a lot in during our home respite and I figured I’d memorialize some of the highlights here before leaving for Germany tomorrow.

First up the Saturday after our return was hosting a birthday party for our friend Constantine, the Musical Director and Principle Conductor of the New York City Opera. It was going to be a small affair, maybe 25 or at most 30 people, so Mark & I treated it as an experiment: could we pull off a party like that, with lots of food, without caterers? And the good news is, yeah, we can do it. Mark took responsibility for all the dishes and glasses and drinks and charcuterie and veggies, while I did all the actual cooking. That seemed to be a pretty fair distribution of labor, though the next time – with all the glasses and plates and flatware now purchased – we would likely share more of the cooking.

Mark with new friends Tair Tazhigulov, a bass who sang for us that night and performed onstage with the New York City Opera the following weekend, and Hayk Arsenyan, a concert pianist, at our birthday party

As for the party, it was great fun. As we knew he would, Constantine brought a few singers and as we’ve noted before there is absolutely nothing like live opera in your own living room. The guests were all his friends but increasingly we’ve started to get to know some of them a little better and they’re always fascinating. Like the former U.S. Ambassador to Armenia (which is how Constantine knows him) currently awaiting Senate confirmation to become the Ambassador to Nigeria. So who knows, Mark & I may be off to Abuja sometime in the next year or two just to hang out.

In all good food, great music, fun company. But oh God, after all that prep, was I tired the next day.

Next up was actually seeing Constantine and his company in action. A couple nights every summer they perform a free opera in Bryant Square Park, and we were in town for Lucia di Lammermoor, a 19th century opera by Donizetti. It’s a story where a beautiful young woman is forced by her family to leave the love of her life to marry another man. Sad. But then on their wedding night she stabs him to death and appears onstage in her white nightgown drenched in blood, having gone mad. She spends like 15 minutes singing and dying, appears to die, then gets back up and spends another 10 minutes dying.

Sarah Coburn in her blood-drenched nightgown, onstage with Tair and Elissa Pfaender who also performed in our apartment the week before

It’s actually a fabulous scene and the lead soprano, Sarah Coburn, was spectacular. The voice of an angel (although, as an aside, her late father, a Republican Senator from Oklahoma, was less of an angel…). And two of the soloists on stage had performed at our house the weekend before, so that was pretty cool.

We’ve been wanting to branch out in our cultural explorations and the very next night we had a chance. Analia Farfan is a professional dancer who, among other things, performs with the opera group who we’ve hosted here twice. She was putting on a tribute to Anna Pavlova, the great early 20th century Russian ballerina. The show was really great, the sort of thing that you can’t believe you get to see for just $35 a ticket. Altogether there were maybe eight or 10 dancers all doing numbers associated with Pavlova. Another success.

Analia Farfan was beautiful

Meanwhile my sister Becky was in town that weekend too, bringing her daughter Lily back to Barnard College to start her sophomore year. Sadly, no pictures of them: they were all busy moving back into the dorms and all that stuff.

The excitement continued with Shakespeare in the Park, this year an adaptation of As You Like It. Now, it’s funny that Mark & I keep going to Shakespeare in the Park, since neither of us particularly like Shakespeare. But Shakespeare in the Park is such a cultural … thing … that you somehow just have to. And this adaptation was very loose and very fun. And there you are in Central Park, sitting under the stars watching this great show.

The cast of a very adapted As You Like It

Our month at home even included a quick trip to DC. Way back in 1979 I was awarded a scholarship from the Harry S. Truman Foundation, the third year of its existence. The grant was made to one sophomore in each state who indicated an interest in public service, so it was kind of a big deal. Well, this was the 45th anniversary of the foundation’s founding and they were doing a big party at the residence of the French Ambassador to the United States. Who could miss that?

Dinner after the party at the French Ambassador’s house with Anthony – another Truman Scholar – and his husband Thomas

The event itself was fun, but most impressive is that the residence was just amazing. We saw a couple friends from Truman world, met some new friends and in general had fun. The next morning, because Mark & I had been sponsors of the event, we had breakfast with a select group from the foundation, including Clifton Truman Daniels, the former president’s grandson. Heard lots of fun stories about growing up with the old guy as your grandfather. Interestingly, Clifton occasionally performs a one-man play, Give ’em Hell, Harry!, that starred James Whitmore when it was first produced in 1975. Now I have a fantasy of getting him to do it here and inviting a bunch of Truman Scholars who live in New York. Stay tuned.

Dinner that night was with great old friends who we love to see and then it was back to New York. Now we’re packing and getting stuff ready for another two-and-a-half weeks in and around Bavaria. One day of serious beer-drinking is in store but then a couple weeks of exploring places we haven’t been to before. Should be fun!

More family! Mark got a text one day from Leigh that she was in town briefly on a school trip. She had COVID, though, so the visit was masked and outdoors.

Maestro Constantine, pianist Michael, and some new friends from the birthday party

I almost forgot: we even did politics during our home visit. Mandela Barnes is the Democratic Senate nominee in Wisconsin, so we went to a small event for him. He’s running neck-and-neck against the incumbent and would be an incredible improvement. Sadly, though, Mark & I both find these kind of events kind of boring.

The night we got back from DC I made this fabulous dinner, including roasted beans with pancetta and lemon, and branzino with a fresh cilantro sauce. It was really great but as I put it down it reminded Mark of dinner the night before with our friends and he said “Wow, wasn’t that dinner Dan made last night great?” I explained that’s not the right thing to say when I’ve been making dinner all evening!