Nonetheless, let's talk a little bit about how daring of a movie The Lost Weekend was. This film, starring Ray Miland and Jane Wyman, is all about a would-be writer named Don Birnam, who is an alcoholic, and has been for years. The plot of this story takes us through one long weekend where Don goes on a bender. It balances between the present state of his bender, and flashbacks to better and worse times. It is a harrowing portrayal of what imbibing in alcohol too much can do to a person, and it was (probably) the first film of it's kind to bring alcoholism and it's effects into the limelight. The film was done really quite well, it was just a tad-bit too long for me and so because there isn't much driving plot, one gets a little bored and lost. Overall, I can see how this won the award for Best Picture in 1945, and also how it received so much criticism. A moving film. 3.5/5 stars.
I'm just going to write a short review of this 1945 Oscar-winning movie because I'm short on time and there isn't a whole lot that occurs in the film to really garner that much of a review.
Nonetheless, let's talk a little bit about how daring of a movie The Lost Weekend was. This film, starring Ray Miland and Jane Wyman, is all about a would-be writer named Don Birnam, who is an alcoholic, and has been for years. The plot of this story takes us through one long weekend where Don goes on a bender. It balances between the present state of his bender, and flashbacks to better and worse times. It is a harrowing portrayal of what imbibing in alcohol too much can do to a person, and it was (probably) the first film of it's kind to bring alcoholism and it's effects into the limelight. The film was done really quite well, it was just a tad-bit too long for me and so because there isn't much driving plot, one gets a little bored and lost. Overall, I can see how this won the award for Best Picture in 1945, and also how it received so much criticism. A moving film. 3.5/5 stars. Because I don't travel enough, it seems, I decided to take a quick little trip over the 3-day weekend to check something off of my "New England Bucket List"-Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. My friend Maria and I have been working hard on this bucket list, and decided to start early this summer :) Unfortunately, I didn't actually have the full 3-day weekend because I had to work on Saturday, but it's all good because we just left as soon as I got off at 5 on Saturday. Day 1: We decided to just drive up to Portland and stay there on Saturday night for a few reasons. The most obvious being that it breaks up the 5 hour drive up to Acadia, and the second is that Maria had never been to Maine, let alone Portland! We didn't see a ton but we did go to the main street area, grabbed some beers at the only (of their many) breweries/brewpubs that was still open, Sebago Brewing Company's Portland Brewpub, had a light snack of hummus because we were STARVING, and then headed over to one of the most popular restaurants in Portland, Duckfat. This place specializes in delicious food. Oh, you need more of an explanation than that? They specialize in Belgian fries made from local Maine potatoes fried in, you guessed it, duck fat. Oh, they were heavenly! We ordered the poutine with an egg on top, and then had the doughnut holes (now do you see why we ordered hummus and veggies at the last place?). YUM. Go there if you head to Portland. Afterwards we checked into our hotel in Westport, a Super 8, which was perfect for a budget hotel, and then went to sleep. Day 2: We woke up, got dressed, ate some continental breakfast (it's not a good budget place if it doesn't have continental breakfast), and hit the road! We had about a 3- 3 1/2 drive up to Mount Desert (pronounced Dessert) Island where Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor are located. Just before we got to Mount Desert, we saw an L.L. Bean Outlet store and stopped real fast, but unfortunately (or fortunately for my bank account) didn't find anything. Finally, we arrived in Bar Harbor and were quite hungry so we decided to stop at a place we saw on the map that looked like it was right next to a brewery, called Mainely Meat BBQ. We missed the turn, however and so decided to drive a little further to Echo Lake, which I'm pretty sure is the place my dad told me about. It has a natural sand beach, but it's inland and just on a lake. It was very pretty and the water was perfect. Too bad we didn't have a ton of time or our bathing suits. Darn! We also didn't know if we should be there without a pass to Acadia (although we did not see any signs for entrances on this side of the island), so we left and tried for a second time to find Mainely Meat (we were hungry!). We found it this time around, yay! It just so happened that Mainely Meat is owned by the brewery we were looking for, Atlantic Brewing Company. How perfect! We sat down outside for some good ole' BBQ-I got the pulled pork as always, and perused the beer menu. The waitress came and asked for our ID's and it was at this time that I started to panic. I couldn't find it anywhere in my purse, I went back to the car and didn't see it there, and finally I remembered that to check-in to the hotel last night, I gave the clerk at the desk my ID. I called the Super 8 and thankfully it was back in Portland, only problem was that I couldn't drink any beer at this brewery. Do you know how hard that is to hear when you love craft beer as much as I do? It was sobering (literally). Oh well, the food was great and we at least were quicker at hitting the road to see more of the park on this gorgeous day! We drove back around to the main part of Bar Harbor and saw the signs for entrances to Acadia. We grabbed a park entrance pass for $25 (I think it might have been more for the holiday season) and hit the Park Loop Road. The Park Loop Road is the main way to see Acadia as it loops around and hits all of the main sights. Our first stop was Sand Beach. This was GORGEOUS! When I think of beaches, I think of long miles of beach and the open ocean. Well, sand beach is this little inlet off the coast and therefore is almost totally surrounded by land. Land that is full of rocks and very green trees and it's just beautiful. Plus, for some reason that I don't understand the water is incredibly blue and almost turquoise like you see in places in the Caribbean. Awesome! This water, however, was freezing-so no swimming here even if we wanted to! Just a little further up the road was Thunder Hole, which is like a crazy blow hole. You can only see it at high tide unfortunately, so we didn't even try. Near this area were also the Otter Cliffs. I didn't (and still don't) really understand what they are or if we actually saw them, but the coastline was nice. We walked very shortly along the jaggedy little rocks and cliffs along the southeastern side of Acadia. Our next stop was to drive a little inland along the Park Loop and visit Jordan Pond. Again, if we had more time we would have done a nice, easy three mile hike around the pond, but instead we just walked about a quarter of the way around and then back. I think we picked the best side though because we got some great views, and the awesome picture down below :) Our last stop in Acadia was Cadillac Mountain, the tallest peak in Acadia. At first, I wasn't sure we needed to go there and it was mostly because I thought it was more for hiking, but nope. It is easily accessible by car up to the peak and has mini little paths so that one can get basically 360 degree views of the park and the ocean. It was breathtaking, and I highly recommend making sure you get up there to Cadillac Mountain. Consistently while in Acadia, I kept remarking how beautiful it is now of course, but how beautiful it would be in autumn with all of the colors changing. I can only imagine...or I can just visit again :) Now it was time to drive into Bar Harbor and get some food and drink (hopefully)! We had intended to get lobster when looking at this weekend initially, but we were tired and wind-blown and just not quite in the mood for it. Someday, I will again have Maine lobster! But for this time, we ended up at one of the first places we saw (Blaze) that had a witty advertisement saying FREE BEER in all caps, but in-between it said FREE (wifi) (good) BEER. Clever. The menu looked good, both beer and food-wise, so we were set. The only thing was to see if the waiter asked for my ID. I believe I did a great job of pulling off being knowledgeable about beer and therefore made it obvious I was over 21, so I did not get ID'ed. SUCCESS! For food, we hadn't had enough duckfat fries, so we ordered some more with a horseradish creme dip and a truffle aioli! YUM, and way too much but we took them home as leftovers. For my main meal I ordered the bacon-wrapped meatloaf that had (supposedly) cheese curds, bison and pork meat, mashed potatoes, duck gravy, and roasted wild mushrooms. Besides the absence of the cheese curds, it was mighty delicious! I also had some pretty good local (as in Maine in general) beers and was happy with my choices (and that I could taste them!). Next, we decided we should probably check-in to our hotel, Belle Isle Motel, so we drove the 10ish minutes outside of downtown Bar Harbor to the motel. We were indeed the last people to check-in. Whoops! We changed and rested for a little bit before heading back into the town hoping that because it's a summer tourist town that bars would stay open late on the Sunday night before Memorial Day, and we were right! We ended up at Bar Harbor Beerworks (which is NOT a cousin of the Boston Beer Works franchise), and sat on the rooftop and had a few more local brews (also didn't get ID'd here-good or bad thing? Do I look old?). After staying there for an hour or two, we drove back to the motel and hit the sack.
In the morning, we woke up and got ready, checked out of our motel and then headed back into Bar Harbor for breakfast at a spot that was recommended: 2 Cats. It was tasty! We had a little bit of time left to walk around Bar Harbor, the main street area with all of it's shops was really cute! I am proud to say that even though they had some EXTREMELY cute tops, I didn't buy any :) But.....we did buy the blueberry with lemon icing whoopie pie, whoops (haha!). Maine is known for their wild blueberries, AND their whoopie pies, so we had to. We didn't have enough time to walk all the way across, but we did walk down to the sand bar to Bar Island. During low-tide, one can walk across the sand bar to the island instead of during high-tide, taking a boat or something. Kind-of neat! We walked back towards the car and made one last stop to...the ice cream shop. We are horrible. This place had a huge line last night and Maria really wanted the Wild Maine Blueberry Sorbet, which I sampled and was amazing. I don't remember what I ate, but it tasted good as I don't have ice cream too often. After we were stuffed with sweets (oh wait, we hadn't eaten the whoopie pie yet, whew I feel better), we started the long trek back to Portland (to grab my ID) and then to Boston. And it was LONG. We caught some major traffic due to an accident and it took us an extra 1 1/2 to 2 hours, ugh! Oh well, we arrived safely home after a nice little trip Downeast :) Day 1: I started off my trip by leaving my house at 11:45 pm and heading to South Station bus terminal for my bus ride departing at 1am to NYC. The ride was uneventful except for the fact that I felt the driver was driving like a bat out of hell and it was not necessary. Also, I never sleep well on moving vehicles but I did attempt for the whole hours and possibly got a few minutes here and there of sleep. The big problem was that many of Greyhound's buses, although they are updated, are leather-type seats meaning when your driver is driving crazy, you slip all over the place and it makes it even harder to fall asleep! Oh well, I made it to NYC by 5am (20 minutes earlier than we were supposed to and we even left late...yeah he was driving fast). I then walked through the disgusting NY Midtown near Penn Station at 5am (I love NY, but it was too city and nasty at that hour) to the 24-hour diner I had looked up previously that was about 8 blocks away, called the Skylight Diner. There were clearly people there getting some drunk munchies from the night out and here I was rolling in from "just waking up"...quite the opposite! The food was very diner-ish and filling and I slowly ate my meal for the next 2 hours while reading my book. Then I walked back to the station to grab my bus to Ithaca via Binghamton. Pretty uneventful trip, thankfully, and I made it to Ithaca by 1pm. I met up with my friend Lauren and we drove to a parking garage where I quickly changed a few items of clothing so I wasn't in bus-attire, and we headed to a Mexican restaurant, Viva Taqueria, near the Ithaca commons. By chance, Lauren's sister and her sister's BF were in town for a family graduation at the same time so we met up with them at the restaurant! We shared guacamole and all ordered the green chile enchiladas. A nice slow easing into the weekend of drinking is what this meal was :) Next, we drove over to Ithaca Beer Company and put our name on the list for a free tour. We had just been told by Lauren's sister to check out the Buttermilk Gorge near the brewery, so we asked the guy taking down our name if we could make it in time to see the gorge and back for our tour at 4. He was clearly an outdoors enthusiast and pretty much said, "well you only have 40 minutes and there are trails." We were like, "well we just want to see THE gorge or water bit, can we see that?" He basically was like "fine, try." So we drive the 5 minutes there and immediately saw the waterfall thinger-ma-jig, AKA the gorge. Like, it is the FIRST thing you see. We got out, took a look and some pics, Lauren grabbed a coffee from Tim Horton's, and we were still back with 5 minutes to spare to grab a beer for the tour. DO NOT CHALLENGE US :) The tour was great and informational, as always! There was an annoying old man on the tour who would not stop talking and interrupting like he knew what he was talking about with beer, which he didn't. But besides that it was good and we got a few free tastings. Then we decided it was too late to go to any of the vineyards (everything closes at 5), so we stayed for a few more tastings of beers at Ithaca. Finally we let and drove up to Aurora, where we were staying the night at the Days Inn. My second Days Inn in a month, and I am happy with them for a budget motel experience! We grabbed a light dinner at Prison City Brewing-great apps, meh beer, but it was done up nice and quite new. For apps we had the poutine (of course), chickpea fries, and pretzel bites, and we got one dessert to eat and one to take home (more on that one later). Then we checked into our hotel, prepped for the day tomorrow and went to sleep. Day 2: We woke up after a good night of sleep (much needed for myself), got ready, had our continental breakfast, and were on our way to our first and only winery on Cayuga Lake, Sheldrake Point Winery. I was SO happy that we stopped here first. The people were so friendly and helpful in helping us plan our trip and telling us local secrets (not really secrets lol) of what places we NEEDED to stop at. The tasting guide (what do you call them?) took us through a tasting, and based on what we liked or didn't like, recommend places. We spent a bit of time, learned a lot about the area (such as why the Finger Lakes is such a great wine region), bought a dry rosé (popular in this region now), and we were on our way to the Hector area on Seneca Lake. We stopped at Hector Wine Company, where we did a small tasting. Wines were good there as well, but I didn't buy any there (I had already set a precedent and didn't want to go crazy). Next up was one of my favorites, Atwater Estate Vineyards. This winery was so picturesque being situated high up on a hill with its vineyards along the slopes down to the lake. Very pretty and the weather was shaping up to be a gorgeous, perfect day for wine tasting :) The wines here were quite good, and I ended up buying one (a vignole). I was also slowing finding out that I like Gewurztraminers quite a lot! Next on our list was heading to Watkins Glen for lunch, but we made the split decision to visit Finger Lakes Distilling where we shared a tasting of a Riesling Brandy, a bourbon, and a honey whiskey. The honey whiskey was excellent and if I wasn't cheap, I might have purchased it. They also had some pickles there to taste and I was OBSESSED and almost bough the maple-something bread and butter pickles! We left there quite satisfied and headed into Watkins Glen for lunch at Nickel's Pit BBQ, which I had read about. It was in an old firehouse which made the set-up pretty cool. We sat outside and I had a local brew by Rooster Fish, a refreshing blonde. For lunch I had the Triple Hog sandwich which had pulled pork, bacon, and kielbasa on it and a side of jalapeno pepper-dew mac and cheese, yum! Next we decided to drive to a winery on Keuka Lake. We hadn't intended to check out this lake because it was slightly out of the way, but the guy at the Sheldrake told us we should experience McGregor Vineyards, so we drove over there. It was pretty good, and we tried a few unique wines. The view was nice too because it was right where Keuka forks. Not necessarily worth the out of the way, but more impressive that we visited a winery on each lake in one day :) Next up we drove over to the west side of Seneca Lake and visited Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyards, which we were told was a premier place for Rieslings and making them so big in this area! So of course we tried a few Rieslings in addition to others (always a Gewurztraminer) and I ended up buying one of the "sweeter" Rieslings with a large residual sugar content, but they balanced it SO WELL and it was perfect. Our last stop of the day (or so we thought) was Villa Bellangelo, which we were told had an excellent view of Seneca Lake! We checked out some of their wines, one I enjoyed a lot with Concord grapes and was very tasty (so I bought it, yes my fourth bottle), and I also liked the Gewurztraminer, so I grabbed a glass of that, Lauren grabbed a glass of something and we sat on the porch overlooking the lake for a bit :) It was great! But then it was time to leave, because it was past 5 when they closed. http://www.thebellaella.com/After leaving Villa Belangelo, we decided to drive to our bed and breakfast in Canandaigua. On the way, however, we saw Climbing Bines Hop Farm and Brewery that we had intended to visited tomorrow because we thought it, like every place else, was closed. Lauren turned in quickly because she had a great memory and realized that it was actually open until 6, success! This place was really cool with an open type of brewery and a little patio. It was also cool to see the the fields of hops. Apparently later in the season you can actually see hops grow because they grow so fast! The beers here were pretty good, but the first one I had, had an OVERWHELMING taste of edamame or peas which wasn't horrible, but colored my thoughts on the following beers until I finally asked for some water to cleanse my palate. We ended up getting a mini-growler full of one of the beers. Now we were on our way to Canandaigua, a fun word to say once you now how! Our bed and breakfast, Bella Ella, was out on a farm just outside of town. It was freaking adorable. An old house with a cute little porch, and the backyard had a stable for horses and chickens, and a little pond in the back with Adirondack chairs and even kayaks to use! Seriously cute, and an extremely affordable place. Next, we headed into town to eat at a German restaurant I had found, except for they closed at 9. What time was it you ask? 8:15pm. "What? You're Closed?" Seems very bad customer service to me. So anyway we walked around and ended up at an empty Italian restaurant called Casa de Pasta, where I got the penne a la vodka, which I'm obsessed with lately. It was a huge portion so I saved some for later. We drove back to the B&B and watched some TV, drank our beer and dug into our leftover dessert from the night before, a potato chip and chocolate chip cookie. OK doesn't sound good to many of you probably, but I've had cookies like this before and similar to chocolate chip sea salt cookies (which are amazing), salt does a lot for a sweet treat. But this dessert was easily one of the grossest things I've ever tasted. The SALTIEST thing ever. I wanted to honestly vomit. So sadly, we did not get to end the night with a delicious dessert. We sucked down our beer to cover the taste, and then went to bed. Day 3: We woke up the next morning for breakfast at 9am. IT WAS DELICIOUS!!! A full breakfast with coffee, OJ, eggs, potatoes, fruit, and french toast! We also had some lovely conversation with the couple staying there who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary! I hope I look that good when I celebrate my 50th...with whoever that may be ;) After breakfast, we checked out the back pond again because I wanted to sip my coffee on the chairs outside and enjoy the peace...for the 10 minutes that we had haha! We saw the horses this time around though, which was cool! We decided to start our half day of wine tasting at a place we were told had a wine/chocolate pairing, a winery which I cannot remember the name of. We pull in and it's completely empty-no sign that says that they were closed, and it actually looks as if there is minor construction going on? We got out, but couldn't find where to enter and finally decided it was closed-although not one of the men working who clearly saw us looking for a way to get in, called out to tell us it wasn't open. Bad form. So it doesn't matter that I can't remember the name because we didn't go there. So then we drove on over to Anthony Road-a popular place. On the way though, we saw another one of the wineries on our recommended list, Red Tail Ridge Winery, and so we stopped. This place would be really beautiful when the vines are full because the tasting room is quite off the road and you drive through the vineyard to get there. The wines were pretty tasty, but I was starting a new trend for he day- NOT buying :) Next, we headed to the award-wining winery, Anthony Road. The wine guy was kind-of flirty, which was fun, and the wines were good, I just didn't find anything that stood out to me. Proof that I'm clearly not a wine connoisseur. We then headed over to Fox Run Vineyards where they hold vineyard tours, for their hourly tour, but alas, it was cancelled due to thunder and lightning. We just did the tasting instead. Another time for the tour, because although I have done plenty of brewery tours, I have never been on a vineyard tour and I think it would be neat. We drove up the rest of Seneca Lake and had some time so we stopped off at Belhurst Castle Winery. This is a hotel where you can stay and enjoy the old castle and a beautiful view of Seneca Lake. We did the quick tasting of the less than stellar wines, then grabbed a glass (to share) to sit on the patio. It was pretty and relaxing. Our last stop together was to Joe's Hots in Geneva. Rochester, NY is the home of the trash/garbage plate, but this was close enough. We shared one, obviously. IT. WAS. PERFECT. Very yummy and right up our alley. If you like (or don't mind) your food mixing, and are willing, you'll love this hodge-podge of food :) I can totally see why this is drunk food fare in Rochester. Lauren took me to the greyhound "station" where we bid farewell and I hopped on a bus to Buffalo. When I arrived in Buffalo, I walked to my hostel, the Hostel Buffalo-Niagara, which was in a good location-only 15 minutes from the bus station and near some bars/restaurants. I checked in, and decided to walk to Founding Fathers, an old bar that has been listed on BuzzFeed as a bar to visit AND it was recommended to me by a friend. It was pretty divey, local, and I loved it. I drank some local beers, watched some travel food show about bizarre food around the globe (my kind-of thing) and then walked back to the hostel to eat my leftover pasta for dinner, read a bad bit and then went to sleep to rest up for my busy day at Niagara. Day 4: I got up early so that I could check out, store my luggage, and walk back to the bus station to take the local bus (about an hour) to Niagara Falls! I missed the first bus, but it was okay because they come every 30 minutes and I hadn't had breakfast yet. So, I grabbed some Tim Horton's and waited. The bus ride was uneventful except for the windows were open and it was FREEZING. I was thinking that shorts were a horrible idea. Luckily, as soon as I got to Niagara Falls the weather cleared up and it was sunny and beautiful! Shorts were an a-okay idea after all :) My first stop was the information center to get a map and my bearings. I decided to make sure I saw the Canada side first because everyone told me the view is better from over there, so I walked across Rainbow Bridge and across the US/Canada Boundary Line! Pretty cool :) So basically the American Falls are the better looking falls (I think), but you can't see them from the American side as well as you can from Canada, so that is why you go there. Plus, Horseshoe Falls (the Canadian falls) are seen better from Canada as well. The walk over to the Journey Behind the Falls was beautiful and I stopped multiple times to take great shots. My next stop was the Journey Behind the Falls, where you get to go behind Horseshoe Falls. It was about $18 and I gotta say, it was cool, but I expected more of it and it wasn't worth $18. $10 maybe. Oh well, I did it! I grabbed a little snack of seaweed salad (the most expensive seaweed salad I've ever had) and then made my way back across the bridge to America. Next up, was going on the Maid of the Mist. Now I expected this to be cool, but not super cool because it's the most touristy thing to do there. But it was REALLY FREAKING COOL. You literally go practically underneath the falls and get so drenched. I loved it. Of course, I've always been the kind of kid who loved water parks and water rides that got me soaked. At Sea World, I sat in the splash zone for the Shamu show and on Splash Mountain, I tried to maneuver into the best spot for optimal splashing. But even if you don't like being splashed it's still a great view to be in the thick of the waterfalls. A little tip though, stand on the left-side (Port? Port) of the Maid of the Mist, and your view will be better! After Maid of the Mist, I walked to a few of the other views on the American side, and then finally headed back to the bus for my trip back to Buffalo. My last stop on this trip was to Anchor Bar in Buffalo, where the first Buffalo Wings were created. Mmmmm they were tasty. I was also told by my friend to get some pizza logs, which are pizza rolls with an egg roll casing instead of a biscuity outside. Very yummy as well! I went back to the hostel, grabbed my luggage and hopped on the bus to the airport for my very cheap (yes!) and quick flight back to Boston :) A successful trip, I'd say! Overall, it was relaxing with the vineyards, and breathtaking with the beauty of Niagara Falls. I'd highly recommend it as a trip to people. One more tip about the Finger Lakes however, is to give yourself more than a day and a half. Even though it was relaxing, it was also a bit rushed and it would have been nice to be a bit more leisurely about it. Thanks to Lauren for being seriously one of the best travel companions-we travel perfectly together! Signing off now, sorry for the delays in writing this. I've been a busy girl these past few weeks so stay tuned for more updates on my trips to Maine, NYC, and home -oops, probably won't blog about that last one too much ;)
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Welcome!Hi all! My name is Laura and I decided to start a blog about the things I am most passionate about, namely: Food, traveling, reading, watching TV and movies, and listening to music. I'm a Midwesterner living in Nashville, and I am a librarian. Categories
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