This summer I decided to purchase a Mac in order to make better use of our pictures and blog updates. As a result I have moved all of our updates to our new site. The site has a lot of our pictures from various travels as well as all of the blog updates that we had on here. If you are still checking this site, I encourage you to check out the new site.
http://web.mac.com/tedcorbett
Ted
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Bourgogne
We enjoyed a relaxing Easter weekend in Bourgogne, France (that's Burgundy for you Americans). Erin's friend Delphine and her family have a country house there that served as our home base for the long Easter weekend. Lucky for us Friday and Monday were UK holidays so we could stretch the enjoyment a little longer.
We left on the Eurostar for Paris on Friday morning. After a quick lunch in Paris, we met Delphine and loaded into our rental Citroen, for a couple of hour drive to the house. The area was beautiful, culminating in about a kilometer drive down a dirt road in the middle of a farm to their house.
Later in the evening Delphine's mother and nephew (Noe, 2) arrived on the train followed by her partner Christophe and their son Viktor, 4 (they should have been on the earlier train too, but Christophe forgot to pick Viktor up from school first....oops). It was a full house. We enjoyed a late dinner with everyone that started with escargot and this amazing meat pie. I'm not sure what was in the meat pie but it was fantastic. Then of course was the cheese course. We particularly liked the Epoisses. Delphine describes the particularly pungent cheeses as mechant, which translates as mean and angry...I'm amazed that I like the mean ones...I must have grown up a little in the last couple of years. Of course I was the only one who didn't speak French, but everyone tried to speak English when they could, until they couldn't express their passionate objections to American politics then they'd be in full French. Just when it got to the interesting stuff I couldn't understand. "blah, blah, blah....George Bush...blah blah...stupid idiot...blah blah".
On Saturday, after a leisurely breakfast of pain au chocolat and yogurt, Erin, Delphine, Christophe and I loaded in the Citroen to go visit a couple of wineries and have lunch at a super fancy Michelin starred restaurant. Unfortunately traffic was awful and we missed the wineries and showed up an hour late for lunch. The restaurant was fantastic though. I'll add the name when I find it. We sat in the garden for champagne and amouse bouche followed by an excellent lunch in the dining room. After lunch we walked through a beautiful hill-top town of Vezelay.
Even though we missed the winery tours, we stopped in a couple of tasting rooms and sampled the local grapes, primarily Chablis and Pinot Noir. We made a bit of dent and brought home about 9 bottles of wine including a couple of bottles called Ratafia. Ratafia is a lot like Port and apparently was brought to France by the Romans. Whenever a pact was signed or ratified they drank Ratafia. It's goood.
Saturday night we were joined by Delphine's sister Clair and her husband Mathieu, parents of little Noe. Everyone sat around the fireplace talking, drinking wine and playing with the kids. It was fun. No dinner though since we gorged at lunch.
Easter Sunday was fantastic. No one there was particularly religious, so none of us went to church, but we had a great Easter celebration regardless. Erin and I got to hide all of the Easter eggs for the kids on Sunday and had a blast watching them find them. It was a beautiful sunny, 75 degree day and so we went for a walk through the fields and through the little forest.
When we returned we were greeted with the start of an Easter lunch extravaganza. All meals of course start with an aperitif, which is a tradition we need to take back to the states. Our aperitif was the Ratafia. Next course was a giant plate of Fois Gras served on toasted bread with an onion jelly and truffles. Complimented with a chardonnay. What a great way to start Easter. After that was a roast pork shoulder with garlic and rosemary and potatoes. The wine moved on to some of the local pinot noir we bought the day before. Fantastic. Following the pork, when I thought I was stuffed for the week, the cheeses were back out. Certainly it would be rude not to have a little of our favorite "machant" cheese. Almost done, just a little chocolate and almond cake to top it off. What a great day sitting on the porch of a French farm house in the middle of Bourgogne getting a sun burn with a multi-generational French family....in french. Totally cool.
Once I finished doing the dishes (the only job not requiring translation), I had the best nap stretched under a tree on the grass. Best that was until Erin woke me up because I was snoring too loudly and it was affecting her nap. But if that's the worst part of the day....
We even ate dinner later that night. Amazingly. We had a light dinner of duck, salad, asparagus and bread....oh yeah and cheese and wine. I never thought I'd eat again after lunch...but I'd hate to be rude...
Monday was another leisurely day, then Erin and I drove back to Paris for our departure back to London. It was a fantastically relaxed and enjoyable weekend. I look forward to moving into the house next summer for four months to help with home repairs and eat....at least that's what I'm going to start trying to figure out how to do.
Happy Easter.
Ted
We left on the Eurostar for Paris on Friday morning. After a quick lunch in Paris, we met Delphine and loaded into our rental Citroen, for a couple of hour drive to the house. The area was beautiful, culminating in about a kilometer drive down a dirt road in the middle of a farm to their house.
Later in the evening Delphine's mother and nephew (Noe, 2) arrived on the train followed by her partner Christophe and their son Viktor, 4 (they should have been on the earlier train too, but Christophe forgot to pick Viktor up from school first....oops). It was a full house. We enjoyed a late dinner with everyone that started with escargot and this amazing meat pie. I'm not sure what was in the meat pie but it was fantastic. Then of course was the cheese course. We particularly liked the Epoisses. Delphine describes the particularly pungent cheeses as mechant, which translates as mean and angry...I'm amazed that I like the mean ones...I must have grown up a little in the last couple of years. Of course I was the only one who didn't speak French, but everyone tried to speak English when they could, until they couldn't express their passionate objections to American politics then they'd be in full French. Just when it got to the interesting stuff I couldn't understand. "blah, blah, blah....George Bush...blah blah...stupid idiot...blah blah".
On Saturday, after a leisurely breakfast of pain au chocolat and yogurt, Erin, Delphine, Christophe and I loaded in the Citroen to go visit a couple of wineries and have lunch at a super fancy Michelin starred restaurant. Unfortunately traffic was awful and we missed the wineries and showed up an hour late for lunch. The restaurant was fantastic though. I'll add the name when I find it. We sat in the garden for champagne and amouse bouche followed by an excellent lunch in the dining room. After lunch we walked through a beautiful hill-top town of Vezelay.
Even though we missed the winery tours, we stopped in a couple of tasting rooms and sampled the local grapes, primarily Chablis and Pinot Noir. We made a bit of dent and brought home about 9 bottles of wine including a couple of bottles called Ratafia. Ratafia is a lot like Port and apparently was brought to France by the Romans. Whenever a pact was signed or ratified they drank Ratafia. It's goood.
Saturday night we were joined by Delphine's sister Clair and her husband Mathieu, parents of little Noe. Everyone sat around the fireplace talking, drinking wine and playing with the kids. It was fun. No dinner though since we gorged at lunch.
Easter Sunday was fantastic. No one there was particularly religious, so none of us went to church, but we had a great Easter celebration regardless. Erin and I got to hide all of the Easter eggs for the kids on Sunday and had a blast watching them find them. It was a beautiful sunny, 75 degree day and so we went for a walk through the fields and through the little forest.
When we returned we were greeted with the start of an Easter lunch extravaganza. All meals of course start with an aperitif, which is a tradition we need to take back to the states. Our aperitif was the Ratafia. Next course was a giant plate of Fois Gras served on toasted bread with an onion jelly and truffles. Complimented with a chardonnay. What a great way to start Easter. After that was a roast pork shoulder with garlic and rosemary and potatoes. The wine moved on to some of the local pinot noir we bought the day before. Fantastic. Following the pork, when I thought I was stuffed for the week, the cheeses were back out. Certainly it would be rude not to have a little of our favorite "machant" cheese. Almost done, just a little chocolate and almond cake to top it off. What a great day sitting on the porch of a French farm house in the middle of Bourgogne getting a sun burn with a multi-generational French family....in french. Totally cool.
Once I finished doing the dishes (the only job not requiring translation), I had the best nap stretched under a tree on the grass. Best that was until Erin woke me up because I was snoring too loudly and it was affecting her nap. But if that's the worst part of the day....
We even ate dinner later that night. Amazingly. We had a light dinner of duck, salad, asparagus and bread....oh yeah and cheese and wine. I never thought I'd eat again after lunch...but I'd hate to be rude...
Monday was another leisurely day, then Erin and I drove back to Paris for our departure back to London. It was a fantastically relaxed and enjoyable weekend. I look forward to moving into the house next summer for four months to help with home repairs and eat....at least that's what I'm going to start trying to figure out how to do.
Happy Easter.
Ted
Saturday, March 24, 2007
St. Patrick's Day
One trip tops another, this time to the motherland for the national holiday of St. Patrick's Day. Every time Erin introduced herself to a local, you could see them sigh just a little and say "Aw, welcome home", but in Irish. (Yes, that is a language, wait until you go there).
Erin, Jen Bradshaw and I left London on Friday night at about 8pm and arrived at our hotel in Dublin at about 9:30. Meredith Birkmeyer, who you may remember from our romp around Paris last year, decided to join us from Seattle for the weekend as well. We all met in the lobby and decided that we should at least go out for a pint but that we'd save the "big night" for Saturday night. Meredith arrived a day early to visit some friends and had a whole itinerary for us. Before we knew it we were sipping Guiness in a packed pub near St. Stephen's Green. A few pints and a few pubs later it was closing time, probably around 1am. Meredith happened to strike up a conversation with some locals and told them about the "club" we were going to next. They scoffed and said we should follow them to a "private after hours club". We love stuff like that so we started the march, the four of us, plus about about six others. We weren't sure what we were getting into, but they led us into this small basement club with music pounding and then Kevin, our host ordered bottles of champagne. Just what you need after a bunch of guiness is a bunch of champagne. I knew that would be a bad hangover.....but I couldn't be rude. The group we were with were a ton of fun, there was Kevin a local optician, Angry John, who was constantly warned by Kevin to be nice to the poor American, me. He wasn't so much angry as passionate about the stupidity of the American political system. I could sympathize. The angry label really came when looking at the group picture the next day. (He's the one in the back on one on the slideshow). We also met Kevin's sister who was the first Irish woman in the Royal Ballet...needless to say, Erin was impressed. There were a few other friends of their's but I can't remember all of their names. After a few dances, a few glasses of champagne, we all decided that 4am marked a good time to end our "early night".
On Saturday we all were up and out for breakfast by 10am...amazing considering our late night, but heck we were in Dublin for St. Patrick's Day, we had to go to the parade. Well the parade was amazing, there were literally millions of people lining the streets and every single one was either wearing a crazy hat, or a crazy outfit or had their face painted or all three. The entire route was lined ten people deep trying to see. The other big excitement was that Ireland was playing Italy in the Six Nations Cup in Rugby. If Ireland won and France didn't win by as much, Ireland could take the cup for the first time in 20 years. Everyone was excited and all of the pubs were packed. We jammed into one where we couldn't even see the TV, but it was fun to be a part of the excitement. Ireland beat Italy by about 25 points, a decisive win and everyone was excited. Now it was up to France to lose to Scotland, or just not win by much. Unfortunately France crushed Scotland so it was disappointing in the end. We missed the second match because it was nap time for all of us.
After a couple hours of nap time, we all met back in the pub in the hotel at about 7:30pm to get ready to go out for the "big night". I think we all wanted to go back to bed and watch a movie instead of going out. But, we were in Dublin for St. Patrick's Day!! So we dragged our butts to the Temple Bar area of Dublin where all of the cheesy, overly tourist bars are, and all of the action. It was overwhelming, but we decided to drop into different pubs and have a drink and move on. After two or three jammed bars we found one that wouldn't let in obviously drunk green-faced hooligans. But they let us in. It was nice, it wasn't as crowded, there was cool art on the walls, good vibe. We may have found a good spot for the night. Then Meredith, the most single of us, noticed there were a lot of girls in the bar and few guys...and the male bartender kept serving guys instead of Jennifer no matter how much flirting she did. Yep, we were in a predominantly lesbian bar. Looking around more we saw that not only were there a lot of girls, but many were kissing each other. I was fine with staying, but the consensus was that it was time to go.
We wandered a bit more, all of us dragging a bit, but energized by the buzz of the day and the energizing power of Guiness...we finally found a bar, The Stag's Head, that was one Erin had been to in the past and Meredith's friend had recommended, but was hard to find. Once we got our beers we walked into the back room to look for a place to sit and lo and behold, Kevin, Angry John and their friends were there. What a coincidence! We were introduced to the two Nile's, fun-size and king-size were their nicknames, we kept forgetting fun-size and called him pint-size...needless to say he didn't like that. We were invited to join them and we sat around with more Guiness laughing hysterically for hours as Angry John, became flirty, fun John because of Jennifer, he was like Vince Vaughn in Swingers. He hysterically pulled off lines to Jennifer that no normal man could pull off, not to mention he was wearing a killer fur coat. I admit, I developed a bit of a man crush myself...as Erin has enjoyed telling me. His crush on Jen was fun for all of us.
We stayed at the Stag's head until closing time then all moved to a late night club down the street. Of course we were tired, so Red bull replaced Guiness and powered us into the night. Suddenly the late night place was closing, around 4am...but this night was too fun, we had to keep going. Next thing you know we're at Kevin's house. I only went because he said we could get pizza. He lied, there was no pizza. Now we're on to wine...at 4 or 5am....not good for the body. Next thing I knew it was light out and we were in a taxi...at 7am.
After a brief nap, Meredith and I took off for the Guiness factory to go on a tour and get some souveniers before our 3pm flight. After waiting in line outside in the sleet for an hour we decided we didn't have enough time and had to skip straight to the gift shop before leaving. An hour for no tour. Fortunately, I didn't have a hangover, so it wasn't too bad...I was still drunk. I think we all were.
Back onto the plane and back to London. I've never slept so well. I finally felt okay by Wednesday. I'm definitely getting too old for this, but what a blast! Go to Dublin for St. Patrick's Day, but take cute girls with you and meet up with Kevin, King-Size, Fun-size and hysterical John...definitely a fantastic time.
Ted
Erin, Jen Bradshaw and I left London on Friday night at about 8pm and arrived at our hotel in Dublin at about 9:30. Meredith Birkmeyer, who you may remember from our romp around Paris last year, decided to join us from Seattle for the weekend as well. We all met in the lobby and decided that we should at least go out for a pint but that we'd save the "big night" for Saturday night. Meredith arrived a day early to visit some friends and had a whole itinerary for us. Before we knew it we were sipping Guiness in a packed pub near St. Stephen's Green. A few pints and a few pubs later it was closing time, probably around 1am. Meredith happened to strike up a conversation with some locals and told them about the "club" we were going to next. They scoffed and said we should follow them to a "private after hours club". We love stuff like that so we started the march, the four of us, plus about about six others. We weren't sure what we were getting into, but they led us into this small basement club with music pounding and then Kevin, our host ordered bottles of champagne. Just what you need after a bunch of guiness is a bunch of champagne. I knew that would be a bad hangover.....but I couldn't be rude. The group we were with were a ton of fun, there was Kevin a local optician, Angry John, who was constantly warned by Kevin to be nice to the poor American, me. He wasn't so much angry as passionate about the stupidity of the American political system. I could sympathize. The angry label really came when looking at the group picture the next day. (He's the one in the back on one on the slideshow). We also met Kevin's sister who was the first Irish woman in the Royal Ballet...needless to say, Erin was impressed. There were a few other friends of their's but I can't remember all of their names. After a few dances, a few glasses of champagne, we all decided that 4am marked a good time to end our "early night".
On Saturday we all were up and out for breakfast by 10am...amazing considering our late night, but heck we were in Dublin for St. Patrick's Day, we had to go to the parade. Well the parade was amazing, there were literally millions of people lining the streets and every single one was either wearing a crazy hat, or a crazy outfit or had their face painted or all three. The entire route was lined ten people deep trying to see. The other big excitement was that Ireland was playing Italy in the Six Nations Cup in Rugby. If Ireland won and France didn't win by as much, Ireland could take the cup for the first time in 20 years. Everyone was excited and all of the pubs were packed. We jammed into one where we couldn't even see the TV, but it was fun to be a part of the excitement. Ireland beat Italy by about 25 points, a decisive win and everyone was excited. Now it was up to France to lose to Scotland, or just not win by much. Unfortunately France crushed Scotland so it was disappointing in the end. We missed the second match because it was nap time for all of us.
After a couple hours of nap time, we all met back in the pub in the hotel at about 7:30pm to get ready to go out for the "big night". I think we all wanted to go back to bed and watch a movie instead of going out. But, we were in Dublin for St. Patrick's Day!! So we dragged our butts to the Temple Bar area of Dublin where all of the cheesy, overly tourist bars are, and all of the action. It was overwhelming, but we decided to drop into different pubs and have a drink and move on. After two or three jammed bars we found one that wouldn't let in obviously drunk green-faced hooligans. But they let us in. It was nice, it wasn't as crowded, there was cool art on the walls, good vibe. We may have found a good spot for the night. Then Meredith, the most single of us, noticed there were a lot of girls in the bar and few guys...and the male bartender kept serving guys instead of Jennifer no matter how much flirting she did. Yep, we were in a predominantly lesbian bar. Looking around more we saw that not only were there a lot of girls, but many were kissing each other. I was fine with staying, but the consensus was that it was time to go.
We wandered a bit more, all of us dragging a bit, but energized by the buzz of the day and the energizing power of Guiness...we finally found a bar, The Stag's Head, that was one Erin had been to in the past and Meredith's friend had recommended, but was hard to find. Once we got our beers we walked into the back room to look for a place to sit and lo and behold, Kevin, Angry John and their friends were there. What a coincidence! We were introduced to the two Nile's, fun-size and king-size were their nicknames, we kept forgetting fun-size and called him pint-size...needless to say he didn't like that. We were invited to join them and we sat around with more Guiness laughing hysterically for hours as Angry John, became flirty, fun John because of Jennifer, he was like Vince Vaughn in Swingers. He hysterically pulled off lines to Jennifer that no normal man could pull off, not to mention he was wearing a killer fur coat. I admit, I developed a bit of a man crush myself...as Erin has enjoyed telling me. His crush on Jen was fun for all of us.
We stayed at the Stag's head until closing time then all moved to a late night club down the street. Of course we were tired, so Red bull replaced Guiness and powered us into the night. Suddenly the late night place was closing, around 4am...but this night was too fun, we had to keep going. Next thing you know we're at Kevin's house. I only went because he said we could get pizza. He lied, there was no pizza. Now we're on to wine...at 4 or 5am....not good for the body. Next thing I knew it was light out and we were in a taxi...at 7am.
After a brief nap, Meredith and I took off for the Guiness factory to go on a tour and get some souveniers before our 3pm flight. After waiting in line outside in the sleet for an hour we decided we didn't have enough time and had to skip straight to the gift shop before leaving. An hour for no tour. Fortunately, I didn't have a hangover, so it wasn't too bad...I was still drunk. I think we all were.
Back onto the plane and back to London. I've never slept so well. I finally felt okay by Wednesday. I'm definitely getting too old for this, but what a blast! Go to Dublin for St. Patrick's Day, but take cute girls with you and meet up with Kevin, King-Size, Fun-size and hysterical John...definitely a fantastic time.
Ted
Monday, March 05, 2007
Ich bin ein Berliner
Erin and I finally made it to Berlin! After our debacle with Ryan Air in September with Dick, we almost gave up hope of making it there. Suddenly last week we realized that our time in Europe is coming to an end so we need to pack in as many trips as possible. So off to Berlin we went.
We arrived on a rainy Friday afternoon and checked into a cool hotel, the Archotel Velvet Mitte in the former East Berlin. It was located next to an old building that has been taken over by artsy squatters. The area we stayed in, Mitte, was home to a ton of cool shops, great little restaurants and interesting looking people. We wandered around in the rain for quite awhile, of course we forgot the umbrella. That night we ate at a great spanish tapas restaurant that instantly took us back to our great times in Andalucia last year.
On Saturday we walked, and walked and walked. We started at Potsdamer Platz, the european home of Sony and the Daimler Chrysler center, though I don't think they are really based there. In the middle of Potsdamer Platz we could see the remnants of the Berlin wall and cobblestones through the sidewalks and streets marking the location of the wall. It was amazing to see that in what used to be the "death zone" between the two walls, is now a commercial center rivaling any american suburb. It felt like we were in Bellevue WA, not the former home of the Berlin Wall; a little surreal.
Our walk continued by the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag and the amazing new government parliament buildings nearby, the Berlin Dome and other museums. It was a beautiful combination of classic european and modern post cold war. Really cool.
The most impressive site was the holocaust memorial near the Bradenburg gate. It consisted of about 2200 concrete blocks of varying heights, like coffins. They were built on uneven ground and while some were level with the ground others were almost 20 feet tall. Erin's interpretation best summed it up in that you could almost feel the changing emotions of those involved from the high of seeing light at the end to the depths of despair and oppresive weight of the dark times. It was hands down the most moving monument I've ever seen.
The walk also included the requisite stop to look at cool European cars. Since we're starting to get ready to go back, we're hot on the topic of cars. Plus we just saw An Inconvenient Truth and are reborn environmentalists. The problem is there are so few good cars for sale in the US that have good mileage, affordable price and environmental friendliness. Europe is full of good versions. We toured the Volkswagen showroom and found a few that would be great...but they don't sell them in the US. Oh well.
Saturday night was to be our "big night" on the town. So we took a nap and were ready to go at about 9 since some clubs don't even open until 5am. We were ready to rock! We went to one club and they were checking ids but Erin didn't have hers. So as we got close to the door he shook his finger and said "No"...Erin replied with "oh good, no id necessary?", and she hadn't even said anything about her id. He looked back angrily and said, "No entrance!" while others walked on past us. We were turned away for being too old. Such a bruise to the ego! So we showed them and went out to other places...but not if they were too loud...or we had to stand too long...so we went home early...although it was about 2am. No getting into the club "Delicious Donughts" that opened at 5am...and doesn't serve donuts. The other interesting "attraction" in our "cool" east berlin neighborhood was an endless stream of prostitutes on the street. All of whom were fake blonds, tight jeans, big down jackets with corsets on the outside of the jacket, fanny packs and big furry boots....but they seemed nice. Erin said she could tell they were prostitutes because of the fanny packs. We must have seen 300 women in the exact same outfit. I guess our idea of cool neighborhoods is a little different than some peoples.
Sunday was more walking around Berlin to see all the sites we missed Saturday. We saw an old church that was damaged by Allied bombs in the war and now sits as an empty shell next to two super modern structures. Very impressive. But it was in more of a normal West Berlin area that was particularly boring and felt like the US. We were lucky to have picked our much more interesting neighborhood.
Now we're back to work planning for our next trips. We're headed to Dublin next weekend for St. Patrick's Day! Can't wait.
More soon. I'll get pictures up as well...as soon as I find the card reader for the camera.
Ted
We arrived on a rainy Friday afternoon and checked into a cool hotel, the Archotel Velvet Mitte in the former East Berlin. It was located next to an old building that has been taken over by artsy squatters. The area we stayed in, Mitte, was home to a ton of cool shops, great little restaurants and interesting looking people. We wandered around in the rain for quite awhile, of course we forgot the umbrella. That night we ate at a great spanish tapas restaurant that instantly took us back to our great times in Andalucia last year.
On Saturday we walked, and walked and walked. We started at Potsdamer Platz, the european home of Sony and the Daimler Chrysler center, though I don't think they are really based there. In the middle of Potsdamer Platz we could see the remnants of the Berlin wall and cobblestones through the sidewalks and streets marking the location of the wall. It was amazing to see that in what used to be the "death zone" between the two walls, is now a commercial center rivaling any american suburb. It felt like we were in Bellevue WA, not the former home of the Berlin Wall; a little surreal.
Our walk continued by the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag and the amazing new government parliament buildings nearby, the Berlin Dome and other museums. It was a beautiful combination of classic european and modern post cold war. Really cool.
The most impressive site was the holocaust memorial near the Bradenburg gate. It consisted of about 2200 concrete blocks of varying heights, like coffins. They were built on uneven ground and while some were level with the ground others were almost 20 feet tall. Erin's interpretation best summed it up in that you could almost feel the changing emotions of those involved from the high of seeing light at the end to the depths of despair and oppresive weight of the dark times. It was hands down the most moving monument I've ever seen.
The walk also included the requisite stop to look at cool European cars. Since we're starting to get ready to go back, we're hot on the topic of cars. Plus we just saw An Inconvenient Truth and are reborn environmentalists. The problem is there are so few good cars for sale in the US that have good mileage, affordable price and environmental friendliness. Europe is full of good versions. We toured the Volkswagen showroom and found a few that would be great...but they don't sell them in the US. Oh well.
Saturday night was to be our "big night" on the town. So we took a nap and were ready to go at about 9 since some clubs don't even open until 5am. We were ready to rock! We went to one club and they were checking ids but Erin didn't have hers. So as we got close to the door he shook his finger and said "No"...Erin replied with "oh good, no id necessary?", and she hadn't even said anything about her id. He looked back angrily and said, "No entrance!" while others walked on past us. We were turned away for being too old. Such a bruise to the ego! So we showed them and went out to other places...but not if they were too loud...or we had to stand too long...so we went home early...although it was about 2am. No getting into the club "Delicious Donughts" that opened at 5am...and doesn't serve donuts. The other interesting "attraction" in our "cool" east berlin neighborhood was an endless stream of prostitutes on the street. All of whom were fake blonds, tight jeans, big down jackets with corsets on the outside of the jacket, fanny packs and big furry boots....but they seemed nice. Erin said she could tell they were prostitutes because of the fanny packs. We must have seen 300 women in the exact same outfit. I guess our idea of cool neighborhoods is a little different than some peoples.
Sunday was more walking around Berlin to see all the sites we missed Saturday. We saw an old church that was damaged by Allied bombs in the war and now sits as an empty shell next to two super modern structures. Very impressive. But it was in more of a normal West Berlin area that was particularly boring and felt like the US. We were lucky to have picked our much more interesting neighborhood.
Now we're back to work planning for our next trips. We're headed to Dublin next weekend for St. Patrick's Day! Can't wait.
More soon. I'll get pictures up as well...as soon as I find the card reader for the camera.
Ted
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Definitely one of the best trips....ever!!!
Italy
Italy was another story all together after Malta. We absolutely loved Italy. Since we were spending the year in Europe, we didn’t want to go back to the states for Christmas because it is a great time to get away and travel. We told everyone that if they wanted to see us for the holidays they had to come to us…and we would all go somewhere. We found three takers, my dad, Tracey and Abby. Luckily for us they have friends, Lexi and Brad, who have a house in Umbria in Italy that we could stay in…for free. What a deal.
After Christmas, our plan was to meet them at the house in Umbria on the 28th. We booked a flight from Malta back to Rome on the 26th and then a flight out of Venice on January 5th. The rest we would figure out along the way.
Rome
We spent two nights in Rome. We wandered, we ate, we wandered, we ate. The highlights were a walking tour through all of the major sites from our hotel near the train station to the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. Funny moment was turning a corner and stopping cold where I said, “wow, that sure is a pretty building” Erin of course shocked at my ignorance said “you mean the Pantheon” I guess I should know better. Dick, Erin’s dad, has talked a lot about the architecture and construction of the Pantheon and it lived up to all expectations. Amazing what they were able to do so long ago. The Sistine chapel was nothing short of spectacular as well. It was interesting to see the scale of the building and the paintings inside. I expected the famous paintings on the ceiling to be so much bigger and was surprised at how big the Resurrection painting was.
The next day we toured the Coliseum and the Roman Forum. Erin is dismayed that I don’t find history as “exciting” as she does. I think she sees it as a divorceable offense. It isn’t that I don’t find it interesting, it’s just that vivid images of past battles or culture don’t jump into my head. I find the architecture and engineering amazing, but that’s about it. It’s okay though because I’m dismayed that she doesn’t find cooking exciting. I guess we can help each other.
Umbria
We rented a car in Rome at the train station. The attendant drew a little map and said no problem to get to the highway. We just had to drive across the street and back a block or two to our hotel to get our bags. It took us 45 minutes. Rome is confusing to drive in.
Once on the road the trip to Niccone and Umbertide was beautiful and uneventful. The biggest issue we had was figuring out how to pronounce the towns. We finally all agreed on Ni CHON ay and Um BEAR ti day. Who knows if we’re right.
Regardless, the tiny town of Niccone, outside of the slightly larger town of Umbertide, was our destination. Both towns are about 3 hour drive north east of Rome above Lago Trasimeno (4th largest lake in Italy) in Umbria, east of Tuscany.
We were told it was a condo and had all kinds of images in our heads about what to expect. We didn’t expect a gorgeous stone building with three or four units at the top of a mountain overlooking a valley. Stone floors, wood beamed ceilings. WOW. It was truly a special place.
Day Trips
While in Umbria we explored the local area including a few day trips including Assisi, Gibbio and Multpulicano.
Assisi
Our first day trip was to Assisi where we visited the church of St. Francis. It was a beautiful town on a hillside with a breathtakingly amazing church with a few different levels all with amazing paintings. Of course the end of the day was satisfying Abby on another trip to a Gelateria…we all love ice cream after all. We told Abby it was a special treat for her, really it was a special treat for each of us.
Gubbio
Our next trip was to Gubbio. Gubbio was a small town which was known for two things. First was the amazing ceramics. We walked far and wide looking for something to bring home with us. We finally settled for a great platter that would we can’t wait to server Salmon on when we get home. The second was the world’s largest Christmas tree, which was actually lights all over the side of a mountain in the shape of a tree…really cool.
Montepulicano
Montepulicano can only be described as magical. Many of you may have heard of Montepuliano at the wine store. It is an area in Tuscany that is known for its fantastic wine. While the vino was fantastic, the town was even more amazing. It sits on a ridge between two valleys with breathtaking views on either side. We all meandered up the hillside through the town and were blown away by the views…and the wine. When we walked through the gate on the other side, we were all blown away by how magical and amazing it was. By far one of the best places in Europe, if not the world, that I’ve been to.
On the way home, on New Year’s Eve, we were on the search for what to have for dinner. As I was the resident chef, I had a chicken (plus pasta of course) in mind for dinner. I’ve never roasted a chicken before, so what a chance. If only I had a chicken. The only problem was that it was getting late. As we drove through town after town, we looked for a butcher, or a grocery store. Town after town we were disappointed by nothing being open. Finally, we found an open store. We quickly pulled in and I jumped out of the car. When I entered the cashier said, in broken English, you have one minute. I ran to the back and found the butcher, shutting down. There was nothing left in the display case so I asked for a pollo (chicken)..in as much Italian as I could muster. She nodded and proceeded to wrap up a cooked chicken. I shook my head and said no, but couldn’t figure out how to say not cooked. I tried squawking like a chicken and she got the point. She reached into the walk-in freezer and yanked out a raw chicken; head, feet and all still attached. I nodded profusely and she wrapped it up. Once we returned home we had a raucous time playing with the “dead chicken”. We took a hundred pictures chopping the head and neck off, laughing about the dead chicken. In the end we had a fantastic dinner of “dead chicken” since none of us had ever had a chicken so close to life. It was a blast.
Florence
The next day we packed up everything and began the caravan through the rest of Italy. After a long caravan drive we arrived in Florence. We checked into a hotel in the center of town…after an endless search for parking. We reconvened in the lobby for a day of exploration. It was amazing to see the copy of David, the Uffizi museum and the Ponte de Veccio. Unfortunately all the lines were too long for us to actually see any of the real art…such a disappointment. The next day we shopped and wandered more. Finally I was able to get Erin’s Christmas necklace as she found just the right store. Eventually Gar and I separated from the ardent shoppers (Erin, Tracey and Abby) for a couple hours of rest…and a trip to the Camper store for a couple of pairs of shoes…just what I needed, two pairs of Spanish shoes in the middle of Italy. As a Christmas present Erin and I gave the gift of an independent night of fun for Gar (dad) and Tracey in Florence, without Abby. After our requisite nap, Abby, Erin and I had Abby night. We had a blast walking through Florence after teaching Abby how to properly slurp spaghetti. Of course we ended with more gelato…unfortunately all of the horses (for the horse and buggy rides) were asleep…or gone.
Venice
The next day we got back in our cars and moved the caravan to Venice. Upon making it to Venice we decided to park our cars at the airport before going into town. We figured out that the quickest, yet most expensive, route into town was a water taxi. After piling in, we loved watching the breathtaking scenery of Venice unfold before us. It was amazing to see a town partially submerged in water; definitely one of my favorite places on earth. We checked into yet another magnificent hotel. We wandered, we got lost, we wandered, we got lost…it was great. I forgot to mention that we played Scrabble every night in the condo and became addicted to our nightly habit. When we got to Venice we remembered that we forgot to bring the scrabble board; so we had to find another. Eventually we found the Italian version…Scrabbeo. It was quite a bit different, as many of the letters were missing including Q, W, X, Y, J, and a couple other key letters. Nonetheless, we had a couple of ruthless Scrabbeo nights as Abby was mesmerized by Italian TV; who knows why.
The other highlight of the trip was our time in St. Mark’s square and St. Mark’s cathedral. We had an amazing time in the square feeding the pigeons and luring them onto our hands…and Abby and my heads. It was so much fun for the both of us.
The last night, Erin and I separated from the group for a last night of vacation dinner together. We had another fantastic dinner at a great waterside restaurant. The two highlights were a free bottle of wine after they accidentally poured a glass to the adjoining table, as well as an amazing salt baked sea bass. They showed us a whole fish baked under an inch of salt…something I had heard about, but never had. It was great and something I can’t wait to try to make.
The next day, Erin and I shopped all over town for something to bring back. We found an amazing mask that will surely grace our house when we return. It’s cool. Then we were off for the airport and our return to London. Another amazing trip in the books….absolutely fantastic!!!
Sorry for the long delay in posting, but it was a great trip and definitely marks one of my favorite trips.
Ted
Italy was another story all together after Malta. We absolutely loved Italy. Since we were spending the year in Europe, we didn’t want to go back to the states for Christmas because it is a great time to get away and travel. We told everyone that if they wanted to see us for the holidays they had to come to us…and we would all go somewhere. We found three takers, my dad, Tracey and Abby. Luckily for us they have friends, Lexi and Brad, who have a house in Umbria in Italy that we could stay in…for free. What a deal.
After Christmas, our plan was to meet them at the house in Umbria on the 28th. We booked a flight from Malta back to Rome on the 26th and then a flight out of Venice on January 5th. The rest we would figure out along the way.
Rome
We spent two nights in Rome. We wandered, we ate, we wandered, we ate. The highlights were a walking tour through all of the major sites from our hotel near the train station to the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. Funny moment was turning a corner and stopping cold where I said, “wow, that sure is a pretty building” Erin of course shocked at my ignorance said “you mean the Pantheon” I guess I should know better. Dick, Erin’s dad, has talked a lot about the architecture and construction of the Pantheon and it lived up to all expectations. Amazing what they were able to do so long ago. The Sistine chapel was nothing short of spectacular as well. It was interesting to see the scale of the building and the paintings inside. I expected the famous paintings on the ceiling to be so much bigger and was surprised at how big the Resurrection painting was.
The next day we toured the Coliseum and the Roman Forum. Erin is dismayed that I don’t find history as “exciting” as she does. I think she sees it as a divorceable offense. It isn’t that I don’t find it interesting, it’s just that vivid images of past battles or culture don’t jump into my head. I find the architecture and engineering amazing, but that’s about it. It’s okay though because I’m dismayed that she doesn’t find cooking exciting. I guess we can help each other.
Umbria
We rented a car in Rome at the train station. The attendant drew a little map and said no problem to get to the highway. We just had to drive across the street and back a block or two to our hotel to get our bags. It took us 45 minutes. Rome is confusing to drive in.
Once on the road the trip to Niccone and Umbertide was beautiful and uneventful. The biggest issue we had was figuring out how to pronounce the towns. We finally all agreed on Ni CHON ay and Um BEAR ti day. Who knows if we’re right.
Regardless, the tiny town of Niccone, outside of the slightly larger town of Umbertide, was our destination. Both towns are about 3 hour drive north east of Rome above Lago Trasimeno (4th largest lake in Italy) in Umbria, east of Tuscany.
We were told it was a condo and had all kinds of images in our heads about what to expect. We didn’t expect a gorgeous stone building with three or four units at the top of a mountain overlooking a valley. Stone floors, wood beamed ceilings. WOW. It was truly a special place.
Day Trips
While in Umbria we explored the local area including a few day trips including Assisi, Gibbio and Multpulicano.
Assisi
Our first day trip was to Assisi where we visited the church of St. Francis. It was a beautiful town on a hillside with a breathtakingly amazing church with a few different levels all with amazing paintings. Of course the end of the day was satisfying Abby on another trip to a Gelateria…we all love ice cream after all. We told Abby it was a special treat for her, really it was a special treat for each of us.
Gubbio
Our next trip was to Gubbio. Gubbio was a small town which was known for two things. First was the amazing ceramics. We walked far and wide looking for something to bring home with us. We finally settled for a great platter that would we can’t wait to server Salmon on when we get home. The second was the world’s largest Christmas tree, which was actually lights all over the side of a mountain in the shape of a tree…really cool.
Montepulicano
Montepulicano can only be described as magical. Many of you may have heard of Montepuliano at the wine store. It is an area in Tuscany that is known for its fantastic wine. While the vino was fantastic, the town was even more amazing. It sits on a ridge between two valleys with breathtaking views on either side. We all meandered up the hillside through the town and were blown away by the views…and the wine. When we walked through the gate on the other side, we were all blown away by how magical and amazing it was. By far one of the best places in Europe, if not the world, that I’ve been to.
On the way home, on New Year’s Eve, we were on the search for what to have for dinner. As I was the resident chef, I had a chicken (plus pasta of course) in mind for dinner. I’ve never roasted a chicken before, so what a chance. If only I had a chicken. The only problem was that it was getting late. As we drove through town after town, we looked for a butcher, or a grocery store. Town after town we were disappointed by nothing being open. Finally, we found an open store. We quickly pulled in and I jumped out of the car. When I entered the cashier said, in broken English, you have one minute. I ran to the back and found the butcher, shutting down. There was nothing left in the display case so I asked for a pollo (chicken)..in as much Italian as I could muster. She nodded and proceeded to wrap up a cooked chicken. I shook my head and said no, but couldn’t figure out how to say not cooked. I tried squawking like a chicken and she got the point. She reached into the walk-in freezer and yanked out a raw chicken; head, feet and all still attached. I nodded profusely and she wrapped it up. Once we returned home we had a raucous time playing with the “dead chicken”. We took a hundred pictures chopping the head and neck off, laughing about the dead chicken. In the end we had a fantastic dinner of “dead chicken” since none of us had ever had a chicken so close to life. It was a blast.
Florence
The next day we packed up everything and began the caravan through the rest of Italy. After a long caravan drive we arrived in Florence. We checked into a hotel in the center of town…after an endless search for parking. We reconvened in the lobby for a day of exploration. It was amazing to see the copy of David, the Uffizi museum and the Ponte de Veccio. Unfortunately all the lines were too long for us to actually see any of the real art…such a disappointment. The next day we shopped and wandered more. Finally I was able to get Erin’s Christmas necklace as she found just the right store. Eventually Gar and I separated from the ardent shoppers (Erin, Tracey and Abby) for a couple hours of rest…and a trip to the Camper store for a couple of pairs of shoes…just what I needed, two pairs of Spanish shoes in the middle of Italy. As a Christmas present Erin and I gave the gift of an independent night of fun for Gar (dad) and Tracey in Florence, without Abby. After our requisite nap, Abby, Erin and I had Abby night. We had a blast walking through Florence after teaching Abby how to properly slurp spaghetti. Of course we ended with more gelato…unfortunately all of the horses (for the horse and buggy rides) were asleep…or gone.
Venice
The next day we got back in our cars and moved the caravan to Venice. Upon making it to Venice we decided to park our cars at the airport before going into town. We figured out that the quickest, yet most expensive, route into town was a water taxi. After piling in, we loved watching the breathtaking scenery of Venice unfold before us. It was amazing to see a town partially submerged in water; definitely one of my favorite places on earth. We checked into yet another magnificent hotel. We wandered, we got lost, we wandered, we got lost…it was great. I forgot to mention that we played Scrabble every night in the condo and became addicted to our nightly habit. When we got to Venice we remembered that we forgot to bring the scrabble board; so we had to find another. Eventually we found the Italian version…Scrabbeo. It was quite a bit different, as many of the letters were missing including Q, W, X, Y, J, and a couple other key letters. Nonetheless, we had a couple of ruthless Scrabbeo nights as Abby was mesmerized by Italian TV; who knows why.
The other highlight of the trip was our time in St. Mark’s square and St. Mark’s cathedral. We had an amazing time in the square feeding the pigeons and luring them onto our hands…and Abby and my heads. It was so much fun for the both of us.
The last night, Erin and I separated from the group for a last night of vacation dinner together. We had another fantastic dinner at a great waterside restaurant. The two highlights were a free bottle of wine after they accidentally poured a glass to the adjoining table, as well as an amazing salt baked sea bass. They showed us a whole fish baked under an inch of salt…something I had heard about, but never had. It was great and something I can’t wait to try to make.
The next day, Erin and I shopped all over town for something to bring back. We found an amazing mask that will surely grace our house when we return. It’s cool. Then we were off for the airport and our return to London. Another amazing trip in the books….absolutely fantastic!!!
Sorry for the long delay in posting, but it was a great trip and definitely marks one of my favorite trips.
Ted
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Malta for Christmas
The big Christmas trip of 2006 took us to Malta. We spent about 5 days there between the 21st and 26th. While I had certainly heard of Malta before, I didn't know where it was or what there was to do there, but it fit our criteria of places to visit while we are here. Places we wouldn't be able to visit easily once we are back in Seattle. Malta is a tiny island south of Scicily in the Mediterranean. It is at the same latitude as Northern Africa. To get there we flew to Rome, for an eight hour layover, then on to Malta the next day. The weather in Malta was nice, about 60 degrees each day. Not hot, but certainly comfortable.
We stayed in a hotel in the city of St. Julians a small area on the outskirts of Valetta, the capitol. The entire island was small and could be crossed in 30 minutes or so. Malta is beautiful with lots of buildings and fortresses that date back to the 1300's. There were actually some ruins on the island that predate the pyramids in egypt by 1000 years. Wandering around, the architecture, was amazing and we did lots of wandering.
As for culture and the people, the island was interesting because the two languages are Malti, a derivation of Arabic and English. As a former english colony, everyone spoke english and there were lots of brits throughout the island. Disappointing, to say the least.
We have been avid fans of the Lonely Planet tour guide series and now have an impressive bookshelf full in London, but we were not in sync with the writer of the Malta/Goza version. The restaurant and hotel recommendations were generally not very good.
The benefit of staying in a largely English town though was that there was a good movie theater. As everyone knows, we love movies, so we hit the 16 screen multiplex pretty hard. I think we saw five movies in four days including: Holidays, Prestige, Deja Vu, Deck the Halls and Night at the Museum. We would have watched more, but the line on Christmas night was too long...for our third movie of the day.
The other highlight of the trip was walking through an old area of town and seeing a stage set-up in the middle of a square (really just a big intersection), where lots of kids dressed in Christmas costumes would get up and sing. Most would sing one Christmas song and one contemporary cheesy ballad. We enjoyed sitting at a table, drinking a couple of beers and getting in the Christmas spirit.
We also figured we should go to Christmas Eve Mass since we were in such a predominantly catholic country and we had passed so many beautiful churches. So we asked around and the hotel receptionist told us to go to a church a couple of blocks away because they would have a good "Christmas" mass, though it would be in Malti. We had dinner at another mediocre restaurant and made our way to the church. Of all the beautiful churches of Malta, we went to the 1963 version of ugly. It started out well with a live reenactment of the birth of Jesus that was quite festive so we had hope. Then once the sermon by the alter boy and girl was over, it all went downhill. Even though the service was in Malti, we remembered clearly why we don't go to mass. Oh well, we tried.
All in all, a disappointment, but better than sitting at home. Plus, I think we needed the disappointment and time to relax before heading to Italy for part two of the trip.
I hope everyone had a great holiday break.
Ted
We stayed in a hotel in the city of St. Julians a small area on the outskirts of Valetta, the capitol. The entire island was small and could be crossed in 30 minutes or so. Malta is beautiful with lots of buildings and fortresses that date back to the 1300's. There were actually some ruins on the island that predate the pyramids in egypt by 1000 years. Wandering around, the architecture, was amazing and we did lots of wandering.
As for culture and the people, the island was interesting because the two languages are Malti, a derivation of Arabic and English. As a former english colony, everyone spoke english and there were lots of brits throughout the island. Disappointing, to say the least.
We have been avid fans of the Lonely Planet tour guide series and now have an impressive bookshelf full in London, but we were not in sync with the writer of the Malta/Goza version. The restaurant and hotel recommendations were generally not very good.
The benefit of staying in a largely English town though was that there was a good movie theater. As everyone knows, we love movies, so we hit the 16 screen multiplex pretty hard. I think we saw five movies in four days including: Holidays, Prestige, Deja Vu, Deck the Halls and Night at the Museum. We would have watched more, but the line on Christmas night was too long...for our third movie of the day.
The other highlight of the trip was walking through an old area of town and seeing a stage set-up in the middle of a square (really just a big intersection), where lots of kids dressed in Christmas costumes would get up and sing. Most would sing one Christmas song and one contemporary cheesy ballad. We enjoyed sitting at a table, drinking a couple of beers and getting in the Christmas spirit.
We also figured we should go to Christmas Eve Mass since we were in such a predominantly catholic country and we had passed so many beautiful churches. So we asked around and the hotel receptionist told us to go to a church a couple of blocks away because they would have a good "Christmas" mass, though it would be in Malti. We had dinner at another mediocre restaurant and made our way to the church. Of all the beautiful churches of Malta, we went to the 1963 version of ugly. It started out well with a live reenactment of the birth of Jesus that was quite festive so we had hope. Then once the sermon by the alter boy and girl was over, it all went downhill. Even though the service was in Malti, we remembered clearly why we don't go to mass. Oh well, we tried.
All in all, a disappointment, but better than sitting at home. Plus, I think we needed the disappointment and time to relax before heading to Italy for part two of the trip.
I hope everyone had a great holiday break.
Ted
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Happy Holidays
Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I've been in Seattle for the last two weeks for a project at MS. It was a whirlwind...literally. Most of you probably live in Seattle and know all about it, but for those that don't it was amazing. Massive trees down all over town, power out for a million people. I think some people still don't have power a week later. I stayed with Cimp and a giant 100 foot tall cedar next door to his started leaning precipitously towards his house as a result of the storm. I think it was removed yesterday as a result. Thank goodness the house next door held it down.
Other excitement in Seattle was that I got in a little fender bender in my rental car. Completely not paying attention I rear-ended the guy in front of me. Nothing major, but a nice impression of a trailer hitch in the hood of the Impala. No damage to his truck luckily. Thank goodness for Diners Club insurance.
Erin and I are taking off for our next adventure later tonight. We're headed to Rome tonight followed by Malta tomorrow until the 26th. We'll be in Rome again on the 26th and then drive up to meet my Dad, Tracey and Abby in Umbria. We leave from Venice back to London on the 5th. Should be a blast.
I hope everyone has a great holiday! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and see you next year!! More posts and pictures soon.
Ted
Other excitement in Seattle was that I got in a little fender bender in my rental car. Completely not paying attention I rear-ended the guy in front of me. Nothing major, but a nice impression of a trailer hitch in the hood of the Impala. No damage to his truck luckily. Thank goodness for Diners Club insurance.
Erin and I are taking off for our next adventure later tonight. We're headed to Rome tonight followed by Malta tomorrow until the 26th. We'll be in Rome again on the 26th and then drive up to meet my Dad, Tracey and Abby in Umbria. We leave from Venice back to London on the 5th. Should be a blast.
I hope everyone has a great holiday! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and see you next year!! More posts and pictures soon.
Ted
Friday, November 24, 2006
Iceland
The european adventure continues. Last weekend we trekked up to Iceland! Why Iceland? As you probably know, our goal is to go travel to one country a month while we are living in London. Secondly, we want to try to get to some off the beaten path places that would be particularly hard to get to from Seattle. Iceland made the list. When researching it, we saw tons of links to the fact that it is all powered by geothermal hot springs and that there are some great pools and spas. Sounds perfect for mid-November.
It was a jam-packed weekend and here are the details. We rushed out the door on Thursday night, planning to meet Honor at the airport. She thought we were cutting it too close, which we were, as usual. The plane, of course, was late. We landed in Reykjavik at a little after midnight. Once we got our bags, minus one of Honor's that was delayed, we went out to look for a taxi. After midnight, no taxis, but we saw everyone queuing (that's standing in line for you non-euros) for a bus, we decided to as well. We huddled near the door to the bus freezing our asses off. It was probably about -10 below celcius during the day. (about 15 F) So I'm guessing it was -20 below with a howling wind that reinforced that we were in Iceland. We jammed on to the bus, and made it our hotel room by about 3am. Time for a quick nap before getting on a tour bus at 8:30am.
On friday we took the Golden Circle tour around Iceland. We learned all kinds of interesting facts. First, the entire population of Iceland is 300K and 180K in Rejkyavik. Very small. only 1% of Iceland is covered by trees. All of the buildings are heated and hot water via geothermal sources. The water in the shower smelled a little of sulfur. The cold water has been proven the purest in the world and tasted fantastic out of every tap. And everything was so expensive it made London seem cheap. Enough facts for now...We went to the first ever named geyser (named "geyser") apparently all others are named after this one. I've got a good video (which I will work on uploading) of Erin and Honor watching it explode and then posing for a picture. It's pretty funny. We also saw a beautiful, mostly frozen, waterfall. Again, we were in iceland and everything was covered in about two inches of ice, including each of the pebbles in the parking lot. It was too cold to appreciate for long, but the pictures are great. Time for another fact...Did you know that the oldest continuously standing parliament in the world is from Iceland? It is. We saw the site where it started in 930. We were also able to drive from the European geologic (techtonic?) plate to the North American plate. I thought that was cool. Great tour, other than being cold, there was not a cloud in the sky.
When we got back to the hotel, we decided that we should go check out a local swimming pool before having dinner since we may not get another chance. Since Honor lost the bag with her new swimsuit in it, we had to go on an emergency swimsuit shopping trip. I know it's bad for women to try on swimsuits, but it's worse being a man going with two women to try them on. Fortunately, the stores were closing so function sped up the process.
The pool Laugardalslaug is used by locals and has some interesting protocols. First you must not wear shoes into the locker room. We each got yelled at. You must shower before using the pool. You must clean four key areas (complete with diagram) pits, crotch, feet, head. You must not wear a swimsuit in the shower. You must bring your own towel. Which none of us did. Drip dry-ing in Iceland is not fun. After washing thoroughly you run barefoot, outside, where it is dark and about -10 to a big hot tub. Once in, very relaxing. After talking to a local we discover there are four other pools about 100 yards away, either by swimming through a colder pool, or walking. The sides of the pool have salt on them so you won't slip. But salt hurts. We ran to the pools before completely freezing to the pavement. Each additional "hot pot" hotter than the last. Each fit about 10 people and each was full. Surprising for a Friday night at the local pool. Very relaxing. After a time in the steam we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.
On our way to the restaurant the cab driver talked about the Sugarcubes show that night. She was surprised we weren't going there since everyone else was. We told her that we had tickets to the saturday night show. That surprised her as she could swear there was only one show....and we could swear we had tickets for Saturday. Turned the cab around, back to the hotel to check and sure enough the tickets were for Friday. Another cab and off to the show, who needs dinner. They had $10 cans of beer at the show (and they sold them in singles or 10 packs) and $10 glasses of box wine. For those of you who don't know the Sugarcubes, they are Bjorks band. Bjork is the most famous Icelandic export ever. How cool to see her in Rejkyavik. Jealous? It was a great show. We missed the opening act, but at least we didn't miss the entire show.
We heard the nightlife in Rejkyavik started around midnight, and it was only 11:30 and we hadn't eaten yet. We found a cab and went to a place for Tapas. Good spanish food late at night is always a treat, especially in Iceland. From there we went to an Irish bar. So worldly. The highlight of the Irish bar was a local Icelandic couple we sat with. The guy was a funny drunk who acted like Borat the whole time once he found out we were Americans. We were talking about what the locals drink and she said you have to get "ljakdsfj" with "aksdjflkdsa" Needless to say I didn't understand either, so she went to the bar and ordered for us. A round of shots, but fortunately they didn't have the "hakarl"to go with them. The shots were called "Brennivin". They were pretty good though. We were lucky they didn't have shark. I read about it before we left and the local delicacy is shark that putrifies buried in the sand for six months and is then eaten. The girl corrected me when I was telling Erin and Honor what I read. She said, "no, no, no....first everyone pees on the shark, then we bury it for six months..." Whew, close one. At about 3 we wimped out and went home. Enough activity for day 1.
Day Two.
As you can imagine we were tired from Day one. Saturday we were scheduled to go to the Blue Lagoon. A giant hot springs located in the middle of a lava field about 45 minutes in the middle of nowhere. It was fantastic. Same rules as the first pool, but this time we paid for towels! Basically a massive four foot deep hot tub, probably the size of four football fields. Plus some cool silica mud that everyone put on their faces for a mask. Pretty funny site. The funniest site was the life guards who wore full space man suits with moon boots, hooded coat, goggles, gator around their neck and face, massive gloves. Still that cold. And we were just in swimsuits. Again, fantasic experience...everyone should get to do it.
After the blue lagoon and a nap we were determined to go to dinner and stay out late. We went to the same place we were supposed to go on Friday. Tvier Fiskar (two fishes). The service wasn't that great, but the food was good. I went out on a limb (much to the chagrin of Erin) and ate the only endangered species on the menu....whale. It looked and tasted mostly like beef. I don't need to have it again, and I do feel a little guilty for eating it, but I'm glad I tried it.
As we were eating dinner it started snowing. The first hint of weather after two days of beautiful cold sunshine. After dinner we walked to the central nightlife area and went to a nice looking bar for a couple of drinks. We were all tired, and didn't expect it to be a big night. We were in Reykjavik though with nightlife all night, so we decided to go to one more bar to find men to hit on Honor. It didn't take long. We were all having fun, dancing and carousing and before we knew it the lights were on and we were being told to leave...it was 5am. When we got outside there was a foot of snow on the ground. So we went with everyone else to the taxi stand. We were about 300 people deep in the line. As we stood there, the snow continued to fall, everyone in line looked like snow men with about three inches of snow on peoples coats and heads. Few people dressed for a snow storm, or even for cold for that matter. The snowmen look was almost comical (of course I forgot the camera that night). Comical until we had been standing there for 45 minutes and had only seen about 5 taxis go by. We decided to walk with the guy standing next to us, who happened to be in town to perform as a contortionist, Rubberboy, at the midget basketball tournament in town. I kid you not. So while walking the mile or two home in a foot of snow at 6am, we listed to him tell us stories about how he is the world's greatest contortionist. Ordinarily, I might find that annoying, but it was a great way to pass the time on my frigid walk. Hysterical at the time. I did just go check out his site, it's pretty amazing. He was too cold to amaze us on the walk home.
We got back to the hotel at about 6:45am. Time to sleep in until our flight at 4:30....but wait now, there's more. We arranged for massage appointments at 10am. How hard could it be to wake up just to go downstairs and sleep for another hour, maybe not the best use of our time, but I think we had all been looking forward to a massage for weeks...we weren't gonna miss it.
At 1pm we went to check out and find a ride to the airport. The people at the hotel said the buses were delayed so we should catch the next one that comes, which happened to arrive just as we were about to get some food. No rest for the weary, we can eat at the airport anyway. We pile on the bus, it gets fully loaded up and we're off. Before we get out of the parking lot the bus gets stuck in the snow....in the parking lot. My dream of getting snowed in and not being able to go home almost came true. The bus driver actually asked us all to get out of the bus to help push...a bus. When we got to the back of the bus, we found that we first needed to move a car that was six inches away from getting nailed by the bus. Eight of us lifted the car out of the way. Then he said push the bus up the hill. Needless to say that wasn't happening. We were all smart enough to know that was a bad idea. Finally a snow plow drove by and pulled the bus out of the parking lot.
We made it to the airport. Stood in line forever and were offered to get bumped in exchange for a hotel room (at our same hotel which was nice) and free flight back to Iceland to leave the next day. The one time I have a big meeting the next day I get the offer. Damn. Then since they were oversold, we couldn't sit next to each other on the plane. Erin and Honor got business class seats, while I got a middle seat in the back. Totally unfair.
Oh well, we made it home and survived Iceland. Had a great time and it was fun to remember it all again writing this. Sorry it's so long, hope you enjoyed it.
Ted
It was a jam-packed weekend and here are the details. We rushed out the door on Thursday night, planning to meet Honor at the airport. She thought we were cutting it too close, which we were, as usual. The plane, of course, was late. We landed in Reykjavik at a little after midnight. Once we got our bags, minus one of Honor's that was delayed, we went out to look for a taxi. After midnight, no taxis, but we saw everyone queuing (that's standing in line for you non-euros) for a bus, we decided to as well. We huddled near the door to the bus freezing our asses off. It was probably about -10 below celcius during the day. (about 15 F) So I'm guessing it was -20 below with a howling wind that reinforced that we were in Iceland. We jammed on to the bus, and made it our hotel room by about 3am. Time for a quick nap before getting on a tour bus at 8:30am.
On friday we took the Golden Circle tour around Iceland. We learned all kinds of interesting facts. First, the entire population of Iceland is 300K and 180K in Rejkyavik. Very small. only 1% of Iceland is covered by trees. All of the buildings are heated and hot water via geothermal sources. The water in the shower smelled a little of sulfur. The cold water has been proven the purest in the world and tasted fantastic out of every tap. And everything was so expensive it made London seem cheap. Enough facts for now...We went to the first ever named geyser (named "geyser") apparently all others are named after this one. I've got a good video (which I will work on uploading) of Erin and Honor watching it explode and then posing for a picture. It's pretty funny. We also saw a beautiful, mostly frozen, waterfall. Again, we were in iceland and everything was covered in about two inches of ice, including each of the pebbles in the parking lot. It was too cold to appreciate for long, but the pictures are great. Time for another fact...Did you know that the oldest continuously standing parliament in the world is from Iceland? It is. We saw the site where it started in 930. We were also able to drive from the European geologic (techtonic?) plate to the North American plate. I thought that was cool. Great tour, other than being cold, there was not a cloud in the sky.
When we got back to the hotel, we decided that we should go check out a local swimming pool before having dinner since we may not get another chance. Since Honor lost the bag with her new swimsuit in it, we had to go on an emergency swimsuit shopping trip. I know it's bad for women to try on swimsuits, but it's worse being a man going with two women to try them on. Fortunately, the stores were closing so function sped up the process.
The pool Laugardalslaug is used by locals and has some interesting protocols. First you must not wear shoes into the locker room. We each got yelled at. You must shower before using the pool. You must clean four key areas (complete with diagram) pits, crotch, feet, head. You must not wear a swimsuit in the shower. You must bring your own towel. Which none of us did. Drip dry-ing in Iceland is not fun. After washing thoroughly you run barefoot, outside, where it is dark and about -10 to a big hot tub. Once in, very relaxing. After talking to a local we discover there are four other pools about 100 yards away, either by swimming through a colder pool, or walking. The sides of the pool have salt on them so you won't slip. But salt hurts. We ran to the pools before completely freezing to the pavement. Each additional "hot pot" hotter than the last. Each fit about 10 people and each was full. Surprising for a Friday night at the local pool. Very relaxing. After a time in the steam we headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner.
On our way to the restaurant the cab driver talked about the Sugarcubes show that night. She was surprised we weren't going there since everyone else was. We told her that we had tickets to the saturday night show. That surprised her as she could swear there was only one show....and we could swear we had tickets for Saturday. Turned the cab around, back to the hotel to check and sure enough the tickets were for Friday. Another cab and off to the show, who needs dinner. They had $10 cans of beer at the show (and they sold them in singles or 10 packs) and $10 glasses of box wine. For those of you who don't know the Sugarcubes, they are Bjorks band. Bjork is the most famous Icelandic export ever. How cool to see her in Rejkyavik. Jealous? It was a great show. We missed the opening act, but at least we didn't miss the entire show.
We heard the nightlife in Rejkyavik started around midnight, and it was only 11:30 and we hadn't eaten yet. We found a cab and went to a place for Tapas. Good spanish food late at night is always a treat, especially in Iceland. From there we went to an Irish bar. So worldly. The highlight of the Irish bar was a local Icelandic couple we sat with. The guy was a funny drunk who acted like Borat the whole time once he found out we were Americans. We were talking about what the locals drink and she said you have to get "ljakdsfj" with "aksdjflkdsa" Needless to say I didn't understand either, so she went to the bar and ordered for us. A round of shots, but fortunately they didn't have the "hakarl"to go with them. The shots were called "Brennivin". They were pretty good though. We were lucky they didn't have shark. I read about it before we left and the local delicacy is shark that putrifies buried in the sand for six months and is then eaten. The girl corrected me when I was telling Erin and Honor what I read. She said, "no, no, no....first everyone pees on the shark, then we bury it for six months..." Whew, close one. At about 3 we wimped out and went home. Enough activity for day 1.
Day Two.
As you can imagine we were tired from Day one. Saturday we were scheduled to go to the Blue Lagoon. A giant hot springs located in the middle of a lava field about 45 minutes in the middle of nowhere. It was fantastic. Same rules as the first pool, but this time we paid for towels! Basically a massive four foot deep hot tub, probably the size of four football fields. Plus some cool silica mud that everyone put on their faces for a mask. Pretty funny site. The funniest site was the life guards who wore full space man suits with moon boots, hooded coat, goggles, gator around their neck and face, massive gloves. Still that cold. And we were just in swimsuits. Again, fantasic experience...everyone should get to do it.
After the blue lagoon and a nap we were determined to go to dinner and stay out late. We went to the same place we were supposed to go on Friday. Tvier Fiskar (two fishes). The service wasn't that great, but the food was good. I went out on a limb (much to the chagrin of Erin) and ate the only endangered species on the menu....whale. It looked and tasted mostly like beef. I don't need to have it again, and I do feel a little guilty for eating it, but I'm glad I tried it.
As we were eating dinner it started snowing. The first hint of weather after two days of beautiful cold sunshine. After dinner we walked to the central nightlife area and went to a nice looking bar for a couple of drinks. We were all tired, and didn't expect it to be a big night. We were in Reykjavik though with nightlife all night, so we decided to go to one more bar to find men to hit on Honor. It didn't take long. We were all having fun, dancing and carousing and before we knew it the lights were on and we were being told to leave...it was 5am. When we got outside there was a foot of snow on the ground. So we went with everyone else to the taxi stand. We were about 300 people deep in the line. As we stood there, the snow continued to fall, everyone in line looked like snow men with about three inches of snow on peoples coats and heads. Few people dressed for a snow storm, or even for cold for that matter. The snowmen look was almost comical (of course I forgot the camera that night). Comical until we had been standing there for 45 minutes and had only seen about 5 taxis go by. We decided to walk with the guy standing next to us, who happened to be in town to perform as a contortionist, Rubberboy, at the midget basketball tournament in town. I kid you not. So while walking the mile or two home in a foot of snow at 6am, we listed to him tell us stories about how he is the world's greatest contortionist. Ordinarily, I might find that annoying, but it was a great way to pass the time on my frigid walk. Hysterical at the time. I did just go check out his site, it's pretty amazing. He was too cold to amaze us on the walk home.
We got back to the hotel at about 6:45am. Time to sleep in until our flight at 4:30....but wait now, there's more. We arranged for massage appointments at 10am. How hard could it be to wake up just to go downstairs and sleep for another hour, maybe not the best use of our time, but I think we had all been looking forward to a massage for weeks...we weren't gonna miss it.
At 1pm we went to check out and find a ride to the airport. The people at the hotel said the buses were delayed so we should catch the next one that comes, which happened to arrive just as we were about to get some food. No rest for the weary, we can eat at the airport anyway. We pile on the bus, it gets fully loaded up and we're off. Before we get out of the parking lot the bus gets stuck in the snow....in the parking lot. My dream of getting snowed in and not being able to go home almost came true. The bus driver actually asked us all to get out of the bus to help push...a bus. When we got to the back of the bus, we found that we first needed to move a car that was six inches away from getting nailed by the bus. Eight of us lifted the car out of the way. Then he said push the bus up the hill. Needless to say that wasn't happening. We were all smart enough to know that was a bad idea. Finally a snow plow drove by and pulled the bus out of the parking lot.
We made it to the airport. Stood in line forever and were offered to get bumped in exchange for a hotel room (at our same hotel which was nice) and free flight back to Iceland to leave the next day. The one time I have a big meeting the next day I get the offer. Damn. Then since they were oversold, we couldn't sit next to each other on the plane. Erin and Honor got business class seats, while I got a middle seat in the back. Totally unfair.
Oh well, we made it home and survived Iceland. Had a great time and it was fun to remember it all again writing this. Sorry it's so long, hope you enjoyed it.
Ted
Monday, November 06, 2006
Halloween
Even though we weren't in Seattle for Halloween, we couldn't let such a great excuse for party get away from us. We hosted our annual Halloween party in London on the 28th. It is interesting here, because Halloween is not a big holiday. There aren't bags of candy on all of the shelves or costumes and decorations in all the windows. Some people balked at the idea of having to wear costumes when we proposed the event, but in the end, everyone came and loved it.
Every year we try to think of something fun and current to dress as. I don't think I'll ever top my bird flu costume from last year though. This year I decided to go as a prominent Kazahkstani journalist, Borat...high five! I talked Erin into going as Olive from Little Miss Sunshine. I think the costumes were great...Erin didn't like that not too many had seen Little Miss Sunshine yet. Other highlights included the complete cast of the Wizard of Oz, a few super heros and a guy with a scary mask. Everyone partied like rock stars until late in the night. Even Jim our COO and his wife left at 4:30am!!
The other challenge of hosting a party is getting provisions. It's challenging enough in Seattle to drive around to the grocery store, the liquor store, the costume store, but here we have to walk to each place. I know, it's good for me.
Check out the pictures...
Ted
Every year we try to think of something fun and current to dress as. I don't think I'll ever top my bird flu costume from last year though. This year I decided to go as a prominent Kazahkstani journalist, Borat...high five! I talked Erin into going as Olive from Little Miss Sunshine. I think the costumes were great...Erin didn't like that not too many had seen Little Miss Sunshine yet. Other highlights included the complete cast of the Wizard of Oz, a few super heros and a guy with a scary mask. Everyone partied like rock stars until late in the night. Even Jim our COO and his wife left at 4:30am!!
The other challenge of hosting a party is getting provisions. It's challenging enough in Seattle to drive around to the grocery store, the liquor store, the costume store, but here we have to walk to each place. I know, it's good for me.
Check out the pictures...
Ted
Monday, October 23, 2006
To Berlin or not to Berlin
After the company away day and dinner on Thursday night, Erin and I started packing our bags at 11pm to get ready for our 6:25am flight to Berlin. After 3 hours of sleep the alarm went off at 3:30 and Dick, Erin and I were off to get in a cab at 3:45am to Liverpool Station. We safely arrived at Liverpool by 4:15, plenty of time to get on the 4:25am train to Stansted airport. After arriving at Stansted, we got our boarding cards and proceeded to security. The line was one of the longest I'd ever seen...snaking throughout the airport, but we were relatively close to the front of the middle...should be fine. After waiting in security for an unbearable 60 minutes, we made it to the gate at 6:27am for our 6:25am flight. Huffing and puffing with about 12 other people who ran from the tram to the gate, we all saw the plane pulling away from the gate. Missed the flight by mere seconds, even though we did everything right to get there on time...no oversleeping, no stopping for coffee perfect early morning trip. After getting back through security the opposite way and going to "customer service" Ha! We were told that there was another flight Saturday morning at the same 6:25am and we could buy new tickets for 200 pounds each. Afterall "we cannot be responsible for the airport security...we don't have to defend our policy to give no refunds...we're Ryan Air". And, we will never be flying Ryan Air again.
Completely exhausted, angry, deflated, confused...we sat in the airport contemplating what to do next. We looked at all of the airlines and found no flights to Berlin for less than 200 pounds. We decided it would be kinda stupid to pay another $1500 for us all to go to Berlin. Rather than going home to go back to bed we figured we were already packed, so we may as well go somewhere. So we walked over to Budget car rental and rented a car. Why not take a tour of the English countryside....plus I can now learn how to drive on the left side of the road.
Our first stop was Cambridge, a mere 30 minutes from Stanted airport. We figured we could stop there and get a book on England, have breakfast and coffee and plot our course. Cambridge was certainly a beautiful town with all of the colleges of the university. We were fortunate that despite the rain on the drive up, the skies opened up and we enjoyed a beautiful mid-day in Cambridge. I even pulled my best impression of my dad by managing to get a quick nap in in the middle of the bookstore and again on the punts on the canal behind all of the buildings.
With my two short naps, I was ready to go. Next stop Stratford on Avon, home of the Bard. Erin worked the books and phones and found a new hotel for us to stay in. We arrived in Stratford aroung 5pm and all felt that if we napped before dinner we were done for the night. Instead we checked into the White Swan in, an inn since before the Americas were founded (1450), right in the middle of town. We had a hard time finding it though because it was in the center of a town carnival with rides galore. After dinner, we rode the bumper cars about five times, all three of us laughing like 5 year olds as we slammed into each other. Dick and I also went on a ride that was a small steel cage hooked to two bungy cords stretched 100 feet in the air that shot the cage straight up like a cannon. Erin took a video which I will figure out how to attach. It was a blast...
After a solid 12 hours of sleep, we toured Stratford on the common double decker tour bus, and toured the birthplace of Shakespeare. Next we were back in the car to figure out where to go next. First stop was the Warwick Castle. This was an amazing midevil castle run by the Tausaud's so the castle was filled with wax figures. I thought it was a little weird with the figures, but it was a very cool castle. One of the highlights was a giant Trebuchet set-up out on the lawn where we got to witness them shoot a flaming ball about 1/4 mile. We'll try to attach the video of that as well.
Next stop was the Cotswolds. We piled back in our right hand drive car and started cruising around the Cotswolds (english for cute little towns in idyllic settings). We stayed in the tiny town of Witney at a great little hotel. While we were checking in the restaurant looked fantastic so we all went up to rest for a minute before heading down to eat. Unfortunately, the restaurant was booked solid until 10:15p (it was about 7 now). But they gave us a few recommendations in town (english, thai and Indian). First stop english, booked. Next thai...booked. next indian...booked. There were only about 5 restaurants in town, all booked solid. Just before we were to settle on the "American Pizza/chicken/kabob" house, we went down one more street. There we found a hotel with a dining room...and a few open tables. The service was absolutely horrible, and fortunately they overheard me talking about it. Midway through we got the most attentive service and they redeemed their previously long-lost tip.
Sunday was spent touring Oxford. Another beautiful college town with very old buildings, many featured in Harry Potter books. I loved seeing the pub that has been open since 1242. We all really liked Oxford but agree with everyone who said Cambridge is nicer. It is. After Oxford we went to Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Winston Churchill. Unbelievable. Definitely one of the nicest palaces we've ever been to. The rooms were amazing, it was in great shape...Beautiful.
The last adventure of the weekend was figuring out how to navigate small english towns to take "backroads" to Stansted to return the car. We'd heard so many horror stories about driving back through London, that we did what we could to avoid it. Unfortunately our map was terrible, but we had a good adventure of it all.
All-in-all a fantastic weekend...but now we need to plan another trip to Berlin. And apologize to Mary Core and her friend (who we were to meet there) who did get to enjoy Berlin.
Ted
Completely exhausted, angry, deflated, confused...we sat in the airport contemplating what to do next. We looked at all of the airlines and found no flights to Berlin for less than 200 pounds. We decided it would be kinda stupid to pay another $1500 for us all to go to Berlin. Rather than going home to go back to bed we figured we were already packed, so we may as well go somewhere. So we walked over to Budget car rental and rented a car. Why not take a tour of the English countryside....plus I can now learn how to drive on the left side of the road.
Our first stop was Cambridge, a mere 30 minutes from Stanted airport. We figured we could stop there and get a book on England, have breakfast and coffee and plot our course. Cambridge was certainly a beautiful town with all of the colleges of the university. We were fortunate that despite the rain on the drive up, the skies opened up and we enjoyed a beautiful mid-day in Cambridge. I even pulled my best impression of my dad by managing to get a quick nap in in the middle of the bookstore and again on the punts on the canal behind all of the buildings.
With my two short naps, I was ready to go. Next stop Stratford on Avon, home of the Bard. Erin worked the books and phones and found a new hotel for us to stay in. We arrived in Stratford aroung 5pm and all felt that if we napped before dinner we were done for the night. Instead we checked into the White Swan in, an inn since before the Americas were founded (1450), right in the middle of town. We had a hard time finding it though because it was in the center of a town carnival with rides galore. After dinner, we rode the bumper cars about five times, all three of us laughing like 5 year olds as we slammed into each other. Dick and I also went on a ride that was a small steel cage hooked to two bungy cords stretched 100 feet in the air that shot the cage straight up like a cannon. Erin took a video which I will figure out how to attach. It was a blast...
After a solid 12 hours of sleep, we toured Stratford on the common double decker tour bus, and toured the birthplace of Shakespeare. Next we were back in the car to figure out where to go next. First stop was the Warwick Castle. This was an amazing midevil castle run by the Tausaud's so the castle was filled with wax figures. I thought it was a little weird with the figures, but it was a very cool castle. One of the highlights was a giant Trebuchet set-up out on the lawn where we got to witness them shoot a flaming ball about 1/4 mile. We'll try to attach the video of that as well.
Next stop was the Cotswolds. We piled back in our right hand drive car and started cruising around the Cotswolds (english for cute little towns in idyllic settings). We stayed in the tiny town of Witney at a great little hotel. While we were checking in the restaurant looked fantastic so we all went up to rest for a minute before heading down to eat. Unfortunately, the restaurant was booked solid until 10:15p (it was about 7 now). But they gave us a few recommendations in town (english, thai and Indian). First stop english, booked. Next thai...booked. next indian...booked. There were only about 5 restaurants in town, all booked solid. Just before we were to settle on the "American Pizza/chicken/kabob" house, we went down one more street. There we found a hotel with a dining room...and a few open tables. The service was absolutely horrible, and fortunately they overheard me talking about it. Midway through we got the most attentive service and they redeemed their previously long-lost tip.
Sunday was spent touring Oxford. Another beautiful college town with very old buildings, many featured in Harry Potter books. I loved seeing the pub that has been open since 1242. We all really liked Oxford but agree with everyone who said Cambridge is nicer. It is. After Oxford we went to Blenheim Palace, birthplace of Winston Churchill. Unbelievable. Definitely one of the nicest palaces we've ever been to. The rooms were amazing, it was in great shape...Beautiful.
The last adventure of the weekend was figuring out how to navigate small english towns to take "backroads" to Stansted to return the car. We'd heard so many horror stories about driving back through London, that we did what we could to avoid it. Unfortunately our map was terrible, but we had a good adventure of it all.
All-in-all a fantastic weekend...but now we need to plan another trip to Berlin. And apologize to Mary Core and her friend (who we were to meet there) who did get to enjoy Berlin.
Ted
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Lots of company
Finally Amy Faber emailed me today to demand an update to the blog...and ask what happened to the pictures. Amy, this update's for you.
We've been busy with visitors for the last few weeks. The day after Brian left Kevin and Katie Davis from Hitachi spent the night here on their return to Seattle from France. The next day my Mom and her friend Linda arrived.
We had a great visit with them including a big tour of our favorite spots in London. They learned how to use the Nespresso maker, ate shwarmas, went to the flower market, saw a play, rode the big bus around london...ate more...walked more. One of the highlights was dropping in on a little Yemeni place for dinner. You may be surprised, but that was my first Yemeni restuarant experience. The other surprise was that Erin, Ma and Linda were the only three women in the entire restaurant that was packed with Yemeni's. Linda coined it "No Womeni, Yemeni" (which sounds funny if you say it quickly). It was really great to have them here. Always great to get a little dose of home and make sure your mother knows where you live.
Not long after all of them left, Erin's dad Dick arrived in London. He arrived on Thursday last week. The highlight of the trip so far was that we all went and saw Spamalot on Saturday. For those of you who don't know, it is based on Monty Python's Holy Grail. It was fantastic from start to finish. The star of the show was Tim Curry (of Rocky Horror Picture Show fame). See it if you get the chance.
The next big adventure is this weekend when the three of us get on a 6:05am flight (from Stansted; a couple of hours by tube and train away) to Berlin. I can't wait, I've wanted to go to Berlin for a long time. It will be fun to have Dick along too who hasn't been to Berlin since 1959...I bet it's changed...
We're now planning our next big adventure as well. November's big trip is going to be to Iceland! I know what you're thinking, "Iceland in November?" Reykjavik is actually home to countless hot springs and spas. We see it as a restful place to relax, eat and drink... Admit it, it sounds nice. Here is a link to the Blue Lagoon which convinced us to go.
As you can see, I've also updated the photos. I hope you like. If you read all this, drop me a line, or add a comment. It's fun to know who's reading. I do have a site tracker and can see the city of people visiting and how they found the page. The best so far was someone who googled "Kirsten Nesholm" and found our page. Kirsten, you have a stalker!!
Look forward to talking more soon,
Ted
We've been busy with visitors for the last few weeks. The day after Brian left Kevin and Katie Davis from Hitachi spent the night here on their return to Seattle from France. The next day my Mom and her friend Linda arrived.
We had a great visit with them including a big tour of our favorite spots in London. They learned how to use the Nespresso maker, ate shwarmas, went to the flower market, saw a play, rode the big bus around london...ate more...walked more. One of the highlights was dropping in on a little Yemeni place for dinner. You may be surprised, but that was my first Yemeni restuarant experience. The other surprise was that Erin, Ma and Linda were the only three women in the entire restaurant that was packed with Yemeni's. Linda coined it "No Womeni, Yemeni" (which sounds funny if you say it quickly). It was really great to have them here. Always great to get a little dose of home and make sure your mother knows where you live.
Not long after all of them left, Erin's dad Dick arrived in London. He arrived on Thursday last week. The highlight of the trip so far was that we all went and saw Spamalot on Saturday. For those of you who don't know, it is based on Monty Python's Holy Grail. It was fantastic from start to finish. The star of the show was Tim Curry (of Rocky Horror Picture Show fame). See it if you get the chance.
The next big adventure is this weekend when the three of us get on a 6:05am flight (from Stansted; a couple of hours by tube and train away) to Berlin. I can't wait, I've wanted to go to Berlin for a long time. It will be fun to have Dick along too who hasn't been to Berlin since 1959...I bet it's changed...
We're now planning our next big adventure as well. November's big trip is going to be to Iceland! I know what you're thinking, "Iceland in November?" Reykjavik is actually home to countless hot springs and spas. We see it as a restful place to relax, eat and drink... Admit it, it sounds nice. Here is a link to the Blue Lagoon which convinced us to go.
As you can see, I've also updated the photos. I hope you like. If you read all this, drop me a line, or add a comment. It's fun to know who's reading. I do have a site tracker and can see the city of people visiting and how they found the page. The best so far was someone who googled "Kirsten Nesholm" and found our page. Kirsten, you have a stalker!!
Look forward to talking more soon,
Ted
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Scotland
This past weekend we went to Scotland and it was fantastic. Cimp, Erin and I flew out to Edinburgh on Wednesday night after work. After arriving late, we went out for a late night pint and met a bombed local who told us we needed to go to the Trussochs and Borders....at least 27 different times. It became the running joke for the rest of the trip.
On Thursday, the three of us drove to St. Andrews so that Cimp and I could get our name on the list to play golf on Friday. Unfortunately, the Old Course was closed for a tournament, but we were able to get our name down for Friday on the New Course. Turns out the new course was established in 1895! The entire time we were there on Thursday it rained. We were dedicated to playing on Friday, so we spent the afternoon looking at all of the local golf shops for rain gear. I decided to wait until Friday to buy rain gear since it was so expensive.
After leaving St. Andrews, we wanted to try to play 9 holes on Thursday to help justify why Erin and I shipped our clubs. We went to a small course about 10 miles south of St. Andrews called Anstruther. When we got out of the car in the empty parking lot that held 10 cars at most, we weren't sure what the round would be like. The course did hug the coast though, so we had high hopes. After paying our 12 pound green fee we set off. The course was simply spectacular. It hugged the coast, had a castle/turret on the second hole (that served as a backstop for my approach). It continued to go up and down near the water, one spectacular hole after another. We had amazing time. Even better, it didn't rain a drop during our two hours on the course! On the drive home the skies opened up and rained all night long.
Cimp and I decided we would get up early to play St. Andrews. We were prepared for a wet day on such a famous course. When we left the hotel, there were only high thin clouds. We were both too nervous to jinx ourselves so neither of us discussed the weather for the entire 1 1/2 hour drive...but it kept getting sunnier. As we were about 10 miles from the course, we could see the entire coast absolutely socked in by big clouds. Of course it would rain. After putting on eight layers, winter cap in the bag, a little sunscreen just in case, we set off. It didn't rain a drop! In fact it was about 75 degrees and we were mad we weren't wearing shorts. My biggest problem was what to use to wipe the sweat off of my head.
The day was absolutely fantastic. We played St. Andrews...hard, rolling fairways, littered with pot bunkers and gorse on the sides. There wasn't a range near by though, so we went off cold. At least that's what I'm attributing to my 122. Cimp shot 88. Would have been better but an eagle putt that turned into a birdie putt...then a par putt, then a.... Needless to say the next drive didn't help.
We drove back to Edinburgh to meet up with Erin and Honor (who flew in Friday for the weekend). We toured Edinburgh on Friday afternoon, went out for a great dinner and hit a couple of local pubs. On Saturday...it rained.
Saturday we toured the Edinburgh castle before loading into the rental car for our Erin-guided tour of Scotland. Cimp quickly got the hang of driving on the wrong side of the road...he only ran over the curb a few times. It was nice to have a driver and a tour guide.
We went to the town of Perth and visited the Scone Castle and grounds. We then rented a couple of rooms in a local B&B. Cimp and me in one room, Erin and Honor in the other. It was a debate about how to split them up. One had it's own bathroom, but only one bed. The other had a bed and a day-bed, but no bathroom, it was shared in the hall. Cimp and I had the no bathroom. Apparently Erin and Honor's room was 200 degrees and they didn't share a bed well...I slept great, not what they wanted to hear.
On a recommendation from the host of the B&B, Saturday night we went to a local restaurant that we think was the predecessor of Chile's or TGIF with memorabilia on the walls. OUr hopes were low, but it was great. We followed that with a couple of pubs and dancing. There was a guy at one club who looked just like Jack Black, but danced like Michael Jackson. He was amazing and created a great time.
On Sunday we got up to head for Aberdeen where Erin, Honor and I left Cimp on his own. On the way we took an amazing drive through Scottish mountains and ski areas that were gorgeous. On a stroke of luck we were near Balmoral Castle, but were running late so decided not to stop. When we were driving by though we saw a bunch of people on the side of the road with several police officers. In the middle of nowhere. So of course we parked the car and went to see what the fuss was about. The Queen was across the street in church and was about to drive down the road to the castle where she was staying. We stood there for two minutes and there she was in her Rolls Royce waving to us all. Very cool.
The next stop on the Erin tour of Scotland was the Dunottar Castle on the coast near Stonehaven, south of Aberdeen. This was an amazing castle surrounded by water on three sides. Truly breathtaking.
After Dunottar, Cimp left us at the airport in Aberdeen before heading off for a couple of more days of golfing famous Scottish courses. I've been jealous back at work this week knowing the fun he's having. He gets back in London tonight before headed home to Seattle on Saturday.
Scotland was fantastic...I look forward to going back soon.
Ted
On Thursday, the three of us drove to St. Andrews so that Cimp and I could get our name on the list to play golf on Friday. Unfortunately, the Old Course was closed for a tournament, but we were able to get our name down for Friday on the New Course. Turns out the new course was established in 1895! The entire time we were there on Thursday it rained. We were dedicated to playing on Friday, so we spent the afternoon looking at all of the local golf shops for rain gear. I decided to wait until Friday to buy rain gear since it was so expensive.
After leaving St. Andrews, we wanted to try to play 9 holes on Thursday to help justify why Erin and I shipped our clubs. We went to a small course about 10 miles south of St. Andrews called Anstruther. When we got out of the car in the empty parking lot that held 10 cars at most, we weren't sure what the round would be like. The course did hug the coast though, so we had high hopes. After paying our 12 pound green fee we set off. The course was simply spectacular. It hugged the coast, had a castle/turret on the second hole (that served as a backstop for my approach). It continued to go up and down near the water, one spectacular hole after another. We had amazing time. Even better, it didn't rain a drop during our two hours on the course! On the drive home the skies opened up and rained all night long.
Cimp and I decided we would get up early to play St. Andrews. We were prepared for a wet day on such a famous course. When we left the hotel, there were only high thin clouds. We were both too nervous to jinx ourselves so neither of us discussed the weather for the entire 1 1/2 hour drive...but it kept getting sunnier. As we were about 10 miles from the course, we could see the entire coast absolutely socked in by big clouds. Of course it would rain. After putting on eight layers, winter cap in the bag, a little sunscreen just in case, we set off. It didn't rain a drop! In fact it was about 75 degrees and we were mad we weren't wearing shorts. My biggest problem was what to use to wipe the sweat off of my head.
The day was absolutely fantastic. We played St. Andrews...hard, rolling fairways, littered with pot bunkers and gorse on the sides. There wasn't a range near by though, so we went off cold. At least that's what I'm attributing to my 122. Cimp shot 88. Would have been better but an eagle putt that turned into a birdie putt...then a par putt, then a.... Needless to say the next drive didn't help.
We drove back to Edinburgh to meet up with Erin and Honor (who flew in Friday for the weekend). We toured Edinburgh on Friday afternoon, went out for a great dinner and hit a couple of local pubs. On Saturday...it rained.
Saturday we toured the Edinburgh castle before loading into the rental car for our Erin-guided tour of Scotland. Cimp quickly got the hang of driving on the wrong side of the road...he only ran over the curb a few times. It was nice to have a driver and a tour guide.
We went to the town of Perth and visited the Scone Castle and grounds. We then rented a couple of rooms in a local B&B. Cimp and me in one room, Erin and Honor in the other. It was a debate about how to split them up. One had it's own bathroom, but only one bed. The other had a bed and a day-bed, but no bathroom, it was shared in the hall. Cimp and I had the no bathroom. Apparently Erin and Honor's room was 200 degrees and they didn't share a bed well...I slept great, not what they wanted to hear.
On a recommendation from the host of the B&B, Saturday night we went to a local restaurant that we think was the predecessor of Chile's or TGIF with memorabilia on the walls. OUr hopes were low, but it was great. We followed that with a couple of pubs and dancing. There was a guy at one club who looked just like Jack Black, but danced like Michael Jackson. He was amazing and created a great time.
On Sunday we got up to head for Aberdeen where Erin, Honor and I left Cimp on his own. On the way we took an amazing drive through Scottish mountains and ski areas that were gorgeous. On a stroke of luck we were near Balmoral Castle, but were running late so decided not to stop. When we were driving by though we saw a bunch of people on the side of the road with several police officers. In the middle of nowhere. So of course we parked the car and went to see what the fuss was about. The Queen was across the street in church and was about to drive down the road to the castle where she was staying. We stood there for two minutes and there she was in her Rolls Royce waving to us all. Very cool.
The next stop on the Erin tour of Scotland was the Dunottar Castle on the coast near Stonehaven, south of Aberdeen. This was an amazing castle surrounded by water on three sides. Truly breathtaking.
After Dunottar, Cimp left us at the airport in Aberdeen before heading off for a couple of more days of golfing famous Scottish courses. I've been jealous back at work this week knowing the fun he's having. He gets back in London tonight before headed home to Seattle on Saturday.
Scotland was fantastic...I look forward to going back soon.
Ted
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Wicked
Last night we saw something truly worth writing home about. We went to see Wicked. Anyone coming to London should consider seeing it. It was amazingly done with great costumes, creative storyline and amazing performances. The absolute highlight was the star of the show was Idina Menzel the wicked witch of the west. She won a Tony award for her performance in the show in New York. She absolutely knocked our socks off.
We were able to see the show with Cimp, Jen Bradshaw and her two friends from Seattle. Unfortunately all of our friends recently arrived from Seattle and were suffering from jet lag. Good thing the show was so good to keep them all from having an expensive nap.
Cimp, Erin and I are off to Scotland tonight for a few days of golf and touring. More to come soon.
Ted
We were able to see the show with Cimp, Jen Bradshaw and her two friends from Seattle. Unfortunately all of our friends recently arrived from Seattle and were suffering from jet lag. Good thing the show was so good to keep them all from having an expensive nap.
Cimp, Erin and I are off to Scotland tonight for a few days of golf and touring. More to come soon.
Ted
Thursday, September 07, 2006
New photo feature
Check out the cool new photo feature on the right. Fancy, huh? I'll add more there when we get them.
I'm not sure how it all works, but you can hover over a picture and get the title and then click on a photo for more options.
Let me know if there is other cool stuff I should add. I think there is a way you can subscribe to the blog so that when I post something, you get an email. I'll look into that next...
I'm not sure how it all works, but you can hover over a picture and get the title and then click on a photo for more options.
Let me know if there is other cool stuff I should add. I think there is a way you can subscribe to the blog so that when I post something, you get an email. I'll look into that next...
Bavaria
This past weekend Erin and I spent a long weekend cruising around Bavaria. Erin had to be in Munich for meetings this week, so I went along on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend with her and see a little of southern Germany. It was fantastic...one of the best trips we've had.
We started in Munich on Friday. We wandered around town, ate dinner at a traditional bavarian restaurant. In an effort at being brave I ate pork knuckles. Good, tasted like pork. After that we went to the requisite Hofbrauhaus for enormous beers. Not sure if it was the knuckles or the enormous beer, but it was a bit of a rough night....had to be the knuckles.
On Saturday we rented a car. We drove south on the autobahn to a small town called Bad Tolz. The autobahn was amazing. Our sporty little Fiat shook and rattled along at about 80 mph and we were passed like we were standing still by BMWs, Mercedes, Fords, Porsches...fun to watch. Would have been more fun to be a real car...look for the picture of the little fiat.
Bad Tolz was a very cute little town in the middle of the mountains. Bad means spa and we're never ones to turn down a spa. This one was a little different. The Alpamare spa was really a water park. It featured a few hot pools outside, but also had very fun water slides, a wave pool and a very cool surfing pool. It was fantastic running around like kids with a bunch of kids. Being in the middle of Germany no fear of running into anyone we knew. Fantastic.
The next day we did a day of castles. Both of the castles we saw were built by King Ludwig II who was quite the eccentric. He liked to model everything after Wagner operas. One was the Linderhof built in the middle of knowwhere and modeled on Versailles. The second was Neuschwanstein the model for the Disney Sleeping Beauty castle. It was amazingly nestled in the mountains and it was one castle you really need to work for. There was quite the straight uphill hike to get to it. Seemed even harder after all that work on water slides the day before.
On our way to Neuschwanstein, we got to drive through the tip of Austria, in the alps, as well. It was gorgeous. We've talked about going skiing sometime this winter, and the trip through the alps confirmed that we'll be back in the alps once the snow starts.
We started in Munich on Friday. We wandered around town, ate dinner at a traditional bavarian restaurant. In an effort at being brave I ate pork knuckles. Good, tasted like pork. After that we went to the requisite Hofbrauhaus for enormous beers. Not sure if it was the knuckles or the enormous beer, but it was a bit of a rough night....had to be the knuckles.
On Saturday we rented a car. We drove south on the autobahn to a small town called Bad Tolz. The autobahn was amazing. Our sporty little Fiat shook and rattled along at about 80 mph and we were passed like we were standing still by BMWs, Mercedes, Fords, Porsches...fun to watch. Would have been more fun to be a real car...look for the picture of the little fiat.
Bad Tolz was a very cute little town in the middle of the mountains. Bad means spa and we're never ones to turn down a spa. This one was a little different. The Alpamare spa was really a water park. It featured a few hot pools outside, but also had very fun water slides, a wave pool and a very cool surfing pool. It was fantastic running around like kids with a bunch of kids. Being in the middle of Germany no fear of running into anyone we knew. Fantastic.
The next day we did a day of castles. Both of the castles we saw were built by King Ludwig II who was quite the eccentric. He liked to model everything after Wagner operas. One was the Linderhof built in the middle of knowwhere and modeled on Versailles. The second was Neuschwanstein the model for the Disney Sleeping Beauty castle. It was amazingly nestled in the mountains and it was one castle you really need to work for. There was quite the straight uphill hike to get to it. Seemed even harder after all that work on water slides the day before.
On our way to Neuschwanstein, we got to drive through the tip of Austria, in the alps, as well. It was gorgeous. We've talked about going skiing sometime this winter, and the trip through the alps confirmed that we'll be back in the alps once the snow starts.
Notting Hill Carnival
Sorry for the delays in updates...I know, common theme. So much activity, I've been a little delayed.
Erin's cousin Scott and his girlfriend Reut were in town over the bank holiday weekend (the week before US Labor Day). We had a great time wandering through Camden Market and throughout London. Scott and Reut (pronouced Ray oot) live in Amsterdam, though Scott is getting ready to move to Palo Alto to begin his PhD program at Stanford. We are very impressed. Our only hope is that he can finish and explain to us what computational linguistics is.
While they were in town we went to the Notting Hill Carnival which was not far from our house. The carnival is carribean themed and typically attracts about a million people to the Notting Hill neighborhood. Everyone at work who's been said that it is something we should go to once... It was fun, but a million people is a zoo. One of the most amazing things is that there were no trash cans at all, but tons of trash. I know there aren't a lot of trash cans in a lot of places due to terrorism bomb fears. I'm not sure if that is the same reason as no trash cans there, but I am assuming so. The other amazing feature was the sound systems that were everywhere. Bob Marley was cranking at full volume from massive semi-trucks loaded with speakers surrounded by dancers in full costume.
Unfortunately Scott and Reut couldn't handle the noise and crowd, but Jen, Erin and I drank rum punch, ate jerk chicken and danced the night away. Tons of fun, and some great pictures to prove it.
While it was fun, I think I got my one trip in...not high on the priority list for future years.
Ted
Erin's cousin Scott and his girlfriend Reut were in town over the bank holiday weekend (the week before US Labor Day). We had a great time wandering through Camden Market and throughout London. Scott and Reut (pronouced Ray oot) live in Amsterdam, though Scott is getting ready to move to Palo Alto to begin his PhD program at Stanford. We are very impressed. Our only hope is that he can finish and explain to us what computational linguistics is.
While they were in town we went to the Notting Hill Carnival which was not far from our house. The carnival is carribean themed and typically attracts about a million people to the Notting Hill neighborhood. Everyone at work who's been said that it is something we should go to once... It was fun, but a million people is a zoo. One of the most amazing things is that there were no trash cans at all, but tons of trash. I know there aren't a lot of trash cans in a lot of places due to terrorism bomb fears. I'm not sure if that is the same reason as no trash cans there, but I am assuming so. The other amazing feature was the sound systems that were everywhere. Bob Marley was cranking at full volume from massive semi-trucks loaded with speakers surrounded by dancers in full costume.
Unfortunately Scott and Reut couldn't handle the noise and crowd, but Jen, Erin and I drank rum punch, ate jerk chicken and danced the night away. Tons of fun, and some great pictures to prove it.
While it was fun, I think I got my one trip in...not high on the priority list for future years.
Ted
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Blog upgrade
I upgraded the blog today to a new version from Blogger. I'm not sure what that means yet, except that I finally saw that I need to "approve" comments, no wonder none showed up. All of the comments are now listed.
Be on the lookout for other changes. I am trying to figure out how to make it send you updates when it is updated...I'm still learning.
Ted
Be on the lookout for other changes. I am trying to figure out how to make it send you updates when it is updated...I'm still learning.
Ted
Bath
This past weekend, we decided we need to see more of the UK, more day trips. We decided to go to Bath, which is about a 90 minute train ride west of London. It was fantastic.
The key feature of Bath is that it is the site of Roman baths from about 2000 years ago. We went on a tour of the original roman baths, and it was amazing to see something that old. The most amazing things about the site for me were the fact that original pool has a lead liner, two inches thick, to protect ground water from entering the bath. Still water tight...2000 years later. The other was a story about how they lined one pool with concrete...but that with the fall of the Roman empire, the formula for concrete was lost for 1000 years. Doesn't sound like a "hot" technology, but amazingly interesting...at least to me. The last point of interest was that the Roman bath was covered over by houses for 1300 years, to be discovered again in the 18th century. Now that it has been excavated, it looks like it could easily be converted into a working bath now. It was amazing.
Not only were the Roman baths amazing, but Bath itself was a very lovely little town. Bath is a very cute town, great restaurants and a ton of shopping. We also went to a modern day spa/steam place, Thermae Spa - a very relaxing way to start a daytrip. I highly recommend a daytrip to Bath for anyone coming to visit. Stonehenge is also near by, although we didn't make it there.
The key feature of Bath is that it is the site of Roman baths from about 2000 years ago. We went on a tour of the original roman baths, and it was amazing to see something that old. The most amazing things about the site for me were the fact that original pool has a lead liner, two inches thick, to protect ground water from entering the bath. Still water tight...2000 years later. The other was a story about how they lined one pool with concrete...but that with the fall of the Roman empire, the formula for concrete was lost for 1000 years. Doesn't sound like a "hot" technology, but amazingly interesting...at least to me. The last point of interest was that the Roman bath was covered over by houses for 1300 years, to be discovered again in the 18th century. Now that it has been excavated, it looks like it could easily be converted into a working bath now. It was amazing.
Not only were the Roman baths amazing, but Bath itself was a very lovely little town. Bath is a very cute town, great restaurants and a ton of shopping. We also went to a modern day spa/steam place, Thermae Spa - a very relaxing way to start a daytrip. I highly recommend a daytrip to Bath for anyone coming to visit. Stonehenge is also near by, although we didn't make it there.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Material Girl
Erin's dream came true last night. We went to see Madonna's concert here in London. I'll save all the details for her to retell, but it was a pretty amazing spectacle. It was actually her birthday yesterday...she's 48! She performed at a pretty high energy level for almost 2 hours.
Like any big show, there were lulls, and a big finish in the end. The best part to me was seeing all of the dancers/acrobats, they were pretty amazing. I also liked seeing how Madonna would try to shock the crowd. Is coming out on a giant crucifix with a thorn wreath controversial? I think the only thing really controversial was that someone would be surprised by anything she would do.
All in all, a great show. Not sure it was really worth the outrageous price, but good.
Like any big show, there were lulls, and a big finish in the end. The best part to me was seeing all of the dancers/acrobats, they were pretty amazing. I also liked seeing how Madonna would try to shock the crowd. Is coming out on a giant crucifix with a thorn wreath controversial? I think the only thing really controversial was that someone would be surprised by anything she would do.
All in all, a great show. Not sure it was really worth the outrageous price, but good.
Riding a bike can be dangerous
My newest pleasure in London is riding my new bike around. After shopping in the US and planning to bring one back, I finally realized they were just as cheap in the UK. I bought a new Trek commuter bike. It's pretty nice for a basic, cheap bike...all black, with a rear rack and panier bag. Very practical for riding to work, which I do almost everyday. Better to get sweaty on the bike rather than just standing in the tube. Plus, it's fun to ride through Hyde Park, past Buckingham Palace, around Trafalgar Square and up to work. Probably about 25 minutes each way - a little bit faster than taking the tube door to door.
I had my first minor accident yesterday though. After Erin said goodbye and told me to be careful, I pulled the door closed and pinched my finger. (If you've been to our place, you'll remember (or will see eventually) that there is no doorknob. You need to reach your hand inside the mail slot and pull.) I started riding and realized my finger was bleeding. I looked at it and realized the pinch in the mail slot cut my finger nail in half...about halfway down my nail. It's pretty gross.
But, I guess that could really be a tube injury as well. I guess I better focus my safety search on gloves rather than a helmet.
I had my first minor accident yesterday though. After Erin said goodbye and told me to be careful, I pulled the door closed and pinched my finger. (If you've been to our place, you'll remember (or will see eventually) that there is no doorknob. You need to reach your hand inside the mail slot and pull.) I started riding and realized my finger was bleeding. I looked at it and realized the pinch in the mail slot cut my finger nail in half...about halfway down my nail. It's pretty gross.
But, I guess that could really be a tube injury as well. I guess I better focus my safety search on gloves rather than a helmet.
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