What's Andy Cooking?

Top five

I spent the entire day today cleaning up my UPS house in preparation for Christmas break. Tomorrow morning, I'll head out to do my christmas shopping before heading over to my parents' place for the holiday.

As is a prevalent trend at this time of the year, I'm going to start a series of Top Five Lists for 2003. For me, this year was characteristically bi-polar. Now, I don't mean to say that it had drastically opposing positive and negative elements, rather I'm referring to the six months I spent abroad relative to the other half of the year here in Tacoma. That said, these lists may end up appearing in twos, one for Europe and one for the US. Here goes . . .


Andy Morrison's Top Five New Places 2003:
1) North Wales - I stayed here for five months from February till June, and the countryside really stuck on me. Aber, where I lived was a beautiful little Welsh coast town, stuck between the hazel blue Irish Sea and the rolling green Cambrian Mountains. Then the trip I took with Lin, Joe, and Anna-Mari was awesome. Four castles, the pinnacles of medieval architecture, amid the green river vales of the Welsh 'heartland.' Seriously cool.
2) Norway - All that said about Wales, after four months there I was ready to see some real mountains again. My trip with Darcy here really hit the spot: it had gigantic mountains rising strait from the fjords, it had wooden houses with large backyards, and best of all, every movie there was played in English. The place just felt like home.
3) Cape Flattery, Washington - The western most point of the continental U.S. My dad and I came here on our summer road trip around the Olympic Peninsula. He had to work at convincing me to come here, but I was glad he did in the end. Down wooden walkways to where the waves cascade against the cliffs and the ocean fades into mist in the west. A pretty amazing sight.
4) Isle of Skye, Scotland - I went twice, once in early March and once again in mid-June. Each time it was a different world. In March, a wind-swept, yellow-brown isolated mystery where the hills dissapeared into the clouds. In June, a lush, green landscape of white sheep and deep blue water, where the mountains seemed to tower out of nowhere from the sea. I think it was these two opposing images that made the island so compelling for me.
5) The Vatican, Rome, Italy - Ok. So I've been here already. Technically. This time around, Lindsey got us tickets to see the candle-light vigil before Easter Sunday and a spot at Easter Mass in Piazza San Pietro the next morning. This was how St. Peter's should be experienced - with organ pumping inside for the vigil and crowds of people chanting for the Pope at the end of Mass on Sunday. Marching bands, pace flags, the whole works - it was pretty powerful stuff.


Lindsey, note the words 'powerful' and 'amazing,' those are for you.

I'm Andy Morrison and that's my two cents.