You Sound Like You're From London

Beach Front

2012-01-16T16:34:00.007Z

I am back in the US for a class. My hotel room is ocean front with a great view, which makes for a great start to a day. The photo above is what I wake up to. The photo below is what I come home to. Rough life, I know.

I was also able to take a few days on the front end of the trip to hang out with Jeralyn in New York. We did mostly that: hang out. One of the milestones we reached on that trip was making the right amount of food. In the past, we have had a lot of waste, mostly because I go a bit overboard. The secret to making the right amount of food is using the right sized mixing bowls. Waste not, want not, and so on.

Jeralyn recently had a birthday and she came down so that we could celebrate together. We were looking for as many cliche activities as possible and we ended up with the obligatory long walk on the beach (while stylishly dressed and complete with jumping dolphins!), seafood dinner (empty restaurant due to arriving really late and it being the off season for tourism), and sunrises over the ocean (from the warmth and comfort of a hotel room).

We also got to hang out with my old roommate from Hawaii, Ali, who is working on a project in the area. Incidentally, if it wasn't for Ali, Jeralyn and I wouldn't have met way back when.

We had a really good time this weekend, although her flight time snuck up on us a bit. There is never enough time, I suppose, but it felt like we were just getting into the swing of things. We have a couple of other potential weekend trips lined up while I am here as well as some potential plans for later on this spring back in the UK. Hopefully more exciting adventures are on the way!

Happy Christmas / New Year

2012-01-01T13:12:00.004Z

Christmas this year was going to be spent working on the house, but I decided, somewhat last minute, to fly to Albuquerque to surprise Jeralyn at her sister's house.

There were a couple of issues that slowed me down. First off, I don't have very many vacation days left and I am hoping to take a long biking trip this summer with some friends. Secondly, Jeralyn wasn't sure whether or not she was going to go to her sister's house due to the cost of the flights steadily rising. I had to gently nudge her to buy her ticket without being too obvious about my intentions if the surprise was going to work.

She bought her ticket 5 days before her flight. I did the same. I had already been coordinating with her sister on how to get to the house and methods of surprising Jeralyn. Once tickets were purchased, I had to figure out a good reason as to why my phone would be off for the 20 or so hours it would take to get from the UK to New Mexico. In the end, I went with something along the lines of how I was going to bring my sleeping bag and get in my car and drive west in search of a white Christmas (there ended up being no snow in the UK, that I know of). I then had to mention how both Wales and the Lake District can have shoddy cell phone reception, thereby buying myself an excuse if she tried calling while I was in flight.

In the end, she figured me out before I got there. She could tell I was speaking around something and then connected the dots on the timeline and lack of phone reception. She asked her sister directly if I was planning on surprising her for Christmas and her sister sold me out instantly. Not only did she sell me out, but she was trying to get Jeralyn to work with her on a counter surprise (as Jeralyn pointed out, her sister really just wanted someone to be surprised).

When all was said and done, Jeralyn met me just outside of security at the Albuquerque airport. I was actually on the phone with her sister when I saw Jeralyn (her sister gave me no indication of selling me out), so I was a little confused at first as to why she was there.

It ended up working out well. She was happy to see me (despite it not being a surprise) and things were already fairly delayed due to a snowstorm. Due to delayed flights and closed roads, we didn't get to her sister's house until after 1:00am. It wasn't until after the fact we learned that Jeralyn was delayed in Atlanta and was supposed to be on the same flight as me to Albuquerque! We could have been hanging out in the airport for 4 hours and then on the 3 hour flight to Albuquerque together. Unfortunately, I didn't send my itinerary to her sister, just my arrival times, and Jeralyn talked to the customer service desk and got back on her original earlier flight.

As for Christmas in New Mexico, it was a lot of fun. Lots of talking, eating, and hanging out in scrubs. I got to meet a small portion of her large family. On a side note, my eyes were completely bloodshot the entire time and looking at photos from that day and a half make my eyes hurt. I didn't take too many pictures, but I did manage to snap a couple.

On the trip back, which was Christmas day, the flight back to England was only about 1/3 full. I ended up getting to take a middle row of 3 seats and lay down. I slept almost the entire flight, from the time the seat belt sign went off after take off until the seat-backs up announcement was made before landing.

New Year's was low key, but good. I went to some friends' house for a small get together. We made sushi and hung out while waiting for Big Ben to be lit up with fireworks at the stroke of midnight.

And now it is 2012. I think there are a couple of predictions for the end of the world this year, but, despite those, I think this is going to be a great year.

Iceland

2011-12-05T21:49:00.012Z

This Thanksgiving I was able to take a short trip to Iceland with my brother and some friends from work. It was a great trip and I look forward to going back someday to see more of what it has to offer.

A quick synopsis of the trip:

Thursday:

- Early morning drive to Glasgow, Scotland with 5 people crammed into my car. We ate Christmas sandwiches before the flight, which involves turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce.

- Flew to Keflavik. Got stuck on the airplane for 40 minutes because the skybridge/jetway was broken.

- Went straight to the Blue Lagoon, which is a geothermally heated pool (it also happens to be the waste water from a power plant). We hung out there for a few hours. Sitting in a super warm, giant pool of water during a snow storm is so great. Maybe one of the greatest ideas ever in the history of the world. I am going to have an outdoor hot tub some day. Mark my words!

- From there to Reykjavik to check into the hotel. The studio apartment that my brother and I were sharing had a broken pipe. We got upgraded to a two bedroom place with a 7 jet shower. Nice.

Friday:

- Up early for breakfast and a start to site seeing. We left the hotel over an hour before dawn. Of course, dawn was around 1000. During breakfast the fire alarm went off. We thought it would go off on its own. Turns out it was hooked up to the whole building. All of our neighbors were outside standing in the snow in pajamas while we ate eggs. The lady that came in to tell us we were messing things up for everyone ended up being from Chicago. She told us a bunch of great places to go to and see.

- We drove around the Golden Circle, hitting all of the major sites

- Geysir (the name of a hot water spout after which all others were named)

- Thingvellir rift valley (where the continental plates are ripping apart)

- A few churches

- The place where laws were debated and fought over way back when

- A giant waterfall called Gulfoss

- Ate at Fjorubordid, the most famous langoustine restaurant in Iceland, in a small town called Stokkseyri.

Saturday:

- Up early, breakfast, including Skyr; custard like yogurt.

- Drove in the wrong direction for almost an hour.

- Got back on track.

- Crossed over a mountain

- Saw some great waterfalls; Glugafoss and Skogarfoss

- Hiked a little, but didn't make it to the glacier we were hoping to see

- Saw Eyjafjallajokull, the volcano that caused all of the air travel delays a year and a half ago

- Accidentally ate some Icelandic horses (cheapest meat!)

Sunday:

- Left before 5am for the airport; streets were packed (everyone stays out until all hours on Friday and Saturday night)

- Flew home, followed by a long drive. So sleepy. I drove 1000 miles on that trip!

Iceland was beautiful. The people weren't necessarily the most friendly, but I definitely much prefer people who don't smile or wave than the ones who buddy up trying to sell you their not-so-sweet souvenirs.

England / Scotland / Morocco

2011-11-19T17:48:00.009Z

Edinburgh

The last week has been an eventful one. Jeralyn came out for a bit and we did some traveling. There were a couple of formal events to attend to, but the majority of the time was spent seeing the sights around the local area, a day trip to Edinburgh, and a few days in Marrakech, Morocco.

The day trips in the local area were nice. Being able to go home every night is very convenient and means not having to lug anything around, which is also a bonus. It's funny, too, how one tends to not worry about pickpockets while in an area that is familiar. Maybe that has more to do with being in a place where you don't stand out.

Black Sheep Brewery

At any rate, we went to York, Hawes, Ripley, Ripon, and Masham while in England. The weather was really warm for this time of year and we avoided any rain. The sun wasn't shining as much as it could have while we were in England, but you can't have it all.

Edinburgh was lovely as always. The sun is always shining there, somehow. We ended up only going up for a day; train in the morning and then back again that night, but it was enough time to hit the major "must see" attractions (minus the scotch tour that looked like a Disney ride), eat some haggis, and explore the narrow passageways.

Walking through a 'close' in Edinburgh

Morocco was a little disappointing. I think a big part of the disappointment was that we had already done some trips in the UK and were accustomed to UK style traveling. Morocco was obviously a very different place, which is part of the attraction, but is also something that can take people off guard.

The most perfect tower in all of North Africa, allegedly.

Inside the Saadian Tombs. The only place I felt comfortable taking pictures was inside attractions that we had to pay to get into. If you stopped anywhere else, people were on you like stink on stank.

The thing that really threw me about Morocco was the aggressiveness of the touts and locals. It was to the point that we literally couldn't stop walking without being accosted. When we wanted to figure out which way to go, we would have to just pick a way and circle back if it was wrong. If we stopped to debate or consider, we were swarmed. I really got the feeling that everyone was doing everything they could to get as much money out of us as possible, by any means possible. Other than that, they were annoyed by our presence.

Cooling off after an extra hour or so of fumbling our way through the souks back to the riad.

The best example of that is when we asked a kid to point us to a street we couldn't find when we were lost in the souks (separate story: crazy complex alleys and roads). I asked a boy, about 12 or so, if he could point me to street. He walked us to it, which was nice of him, but there was an older boy, maybe late teens, that came along, as well. We went around a couple of twists and turns that we had circled a couple of times already and, two minutes later, we were back on track. We gave the older boy 10 dirham (about $1.25), but he looked at me with disgust and said, "10 dirham? This is nothing! Give me 50!" It's worth noting that most Moroccans make less than 80 dirham a day. When I turned away to ignore him, the younger boy took the money.

On the plus side, the streets and alleys were really neat. As long as you don't mind being lost (it's fun for a short while), you can come across a lot of things and interesting sites. It seems that the locals spent most of their time in these alleyways. It was mostly younger boys, but the girls were out and about, as well. A lot of the areas had the classic dude arc welding in sandals and no eye protection, people overloading vehicles of all sizes, and 20 people all giving their opinion in an argument that really only required the two primaries.

Jemma al Fna, the big, open square in the southern part of the Medina, was interesting, but we weren't there to shop, so we spent most of our time noticing how every shop had the exact same things. It really makes you wonder who the supplier is for all of them. It seems like every place you go that has all of the tourist trinkets must be supplied by one person or company. One interesting piece of that puzzle was the food stands that go up every night in Jemma al Fna. There are supposedly over 100. As we were walking around looking for a place to eat, the touts with the empty stands kept telling us, "it is all the same. Eat here or eat there, all the same; eat at ours, there is no wait." In the end, we went to a place that was packed with locals, but when we ordered a wide variety of items from the menu, we noticed that only one thing (the tangia; slow roasted mutton) actually came from that stand. Everything else, the bread, soup, salad, and eggplant, all came from somewhere else. Maybe even the food stalls have the same supplier...

Our riad

Although the place we stayed in was windowless to the outside world and pretty much impossible to find (we hired a local kid), we had a pretty nice stay in a riad, which is apparently the authentic Moroccan style guest house. Basically, it is a small place with a courtyard and a handful of rooms built around that. The place we stayed had 5 rooms. The staff didn't really speak very much English (and we didn't speak French), so that was a bit of a challenge, but it was nice to have something that wasn't crowded. There was a group of French travelers staying there who we would bump into at breakfast. We also randomly sat next to them at a restaurant on the other side of the city, which was odd.

Other than that, back to work, Thanksgiving coming up, and some more excitement (depending on how loosely you are willing to define that word) that I will write about as it happens.

Remember Remember

2011-11-05T20:48:00.005Z

(I shamelessly copied this poem from Wikipedia:)

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot.

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t'was his intent

To blow up the King and Parli'ment.

Three-score barrels of powder below

To prove old England's overthrow;

By God's providence he was catch'd (or by God's mercy*)

With a dark lantern and burning match.

Holla boys, Holla boys, let the bells ring.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

And what should we do with him? Burn him!

Today, the 5th of November, is Guy Fawkes Day, or bonfire night. Most of what I know of the event comes from one of my favorite movies, V for Vendetta. Basically, in 1605 a group of men wanted to blow up parliament and kill King James because of his poor treatment of the Catholics. One of the members of the group wrote a letter to a friend in parliament telling him not to go there on the 5th. The friend turned over the letter and a trap was set for Guy Fawkes, who was in the process of putting barrels upon barrels of gunpowder in the tunnels beneath the building.

In fine Olde Worlde tradition, he was tortured mercilessly and killed. Ever since then, on the 5th of November, Guy Fawkes is burned in effigy over huge bonfires while fireworks are set off. People watch while eating roasted chestnuts and candied apples.

Despite being here for the last couple of years, this was the first time I made it to a bonfire. It was a pretty good sized crowd and the bonfire was pretty impressive. I crashed a party beforehand, although I ended up more or less sleeping in the corner due to a combination of eating too much pizza and German food (it was an Oktoberfest themed party).

In other news, I have been reorganizing, decluttering, and cleaning my house in preparation for getting it on the market. On top of looking like a construction zone, it also looked like this for a while:

I am happy to say that I finally got it on the market today. The realtors went through and all should be official on Monday. Now I just have to keep it clean at all times so that strangers can walk through and judge me.

Here are some more photos of what the place looks like. Hopefully it sells. I meant to get it on the market in August. Better late than never, I suppose...

Still Alive!

2011-10-07T21:36:00.007+01:00

It has been a very long while...

The summer is over and autumn is here already. It's October and I'm not exactly sure how that happened. The easiest way to retrace my steps is to look at the memory card from my camera. In order from oldest to most recent:

I went to a great music festival with my friend Allen. The festival, called Fieldview, is small and low key, but full of great music and activities. Extra bonus, my friend Lewis (car camping in New Zealand and trip last year to see him in Norway) helps to organize the event. It was a really good time. Lots of hanging out, eating, and listening to music.

I spent a week in the US for work. I was able to make it to some historical sites in the Baltimore area that I had never been to before. The picture above is from Fort McHenry, of Star Spangled Banner fame. Since I live in England, I had the honor of placing the British ships and troops. For a while there I thought I was going to win, but the US ended up claiming victory.

I finally finished my heated floor and then decided to paint the bathroom walls. While at the store, I bought paint for the hallway, living room, and kitchen, as well. Months later, I only have one room left, which I hope to finish this weekend. Painting is way more time consuming than one would think.

I went back to the US for two weeks of vacation. I spend some time on my land, preparing it for a camping trip that never happened due to rainy weather.

We went to the cabin for our yearly trip. We figured out the math: we have been going for 15 years. Half of our lives (we had a professional portrait taken to commemorate. I will be sure to post that once available).

We spent a lot of time hanging out and enjoying the cool but dry weather. September is a great time to go to the UP.

I got to catch up with my good friends from the grade school/high school (and still current!) days (and Tomollie, but I lump them in the "old friends" category).

I spent some time with family, as well.

On my last day in Wisconsin, I forced my parents into a manual labor scenario. We cleared trees and branches, cut grasses and weeds, made a trail to the river, and hung out by the water for a bit. I didn't end up buying a canoe like I was originally planning, but some day I will. Seeing as I only go there once per year, and I don't know how often a canoe would get used, it probably doesn't make sense to buy one now.

Turkey Greece

2011-07-12T22:33:00.012+01:00

My friend from Hawaii (now Maryland), Dan, came to Europe recently for a work trip and a wedding in Italy. We were able to schedule some travel into the mix.

We spent about 10 days in Turkey and Greece; the majority of the time being in Turkey. The trip involved a lot of planes, trains, and automobiles. Well, no trains because the Greeks were on strike. Planes, buses, and automobiles, I suppose.

En route to Greece, I had a work trip to Germany. From there I took a flight to London to meet Dan. After a very expensive bus ride from Heathrow to Gatwick (twice the price of my train ride a week later from London to Harrogate), I made a few laps around the airport in search of Dan. Gatwick, being a "budget airline" hub, is an interesting place. It was like a refugee camp, in a way. Dozens, if not hundreds, of people sleeping every which way around the airport waiting for flights that leave at ridiculous hours (ours was scheduled to depart at 5:50am). Dan and I were two of the refugees. After moving around a couple of times, we settled in by some scales for some reasonably comfortable sleep. I think they were plugged in and were generating some heat, which was nice.

We spent day one in Greece walking around Thessaloniki. As I mentioned before, none of the trains were running, but we were able to schedule an overnight bus to Turkey for that first night. We had a whole day to walk around and see the sights, but all of the museums were closed, I am guessing due to the strikes. So what do you do when there is nothing to see or do besides walk around? Grab some Greek beer and wine and check out the open air ancient sites as well as the graffiti from the anti-government folks.

The bus ride to Istanbul was mostly uneventful, minus the fact that a guy in a bow tie kept waking me up and telling me to sit next to Dan. The bus was mostly empty, but he did not like the fact that I was trying to sleep lying down. Getting 20 minutes of sleep at a shot, then getting woken up and told to move (then moving back again for another 20 minutes) gets old pretty quick.

We didn't spend much time in Istanbul that first day. We met a guy at the airport to pick up the rental. The transaction involved someone driving the car up to the curb, Dan signing some papers, then everyone disappearing and we had our car. From there we filled up the empty car (at $9.50 a gallon) and started west towards Gallipoli. Fuel was expensive, but we slept in the car and got fresh fruit, vegetables, and bread (as well as a lot of pickled foods) from markets as we went. Long story short, our goal was to spend less on this trip than the hotel cost from when I went to the Beltane Fire Festival at the end of April in Edinburgh. We succeeded.

At any rate, from Galipoli we took a ferry across into the Asian side of Turkey and make our way towards Troy. By the time we got there, the site was closed. Rather than wait overnight to see a replica of a wooden horse (the site itself didn't seem that impressive, based on the descriptions), we kept driving. We stopped the first night near Avaylik. We slept in the car by some farm fields. Apparently we were surrounded by cows first thing in the morning, but I slept through that.

After looking at a couple of small towns by the water, we pressed on to more sites and spent the night on a trash strewn beach (took some of the appeal out of it). As I write this, two weeks later, I don't remember what the names of a lot of those sites are.

I do remember one of the towns had, according to the book of Revelations, Pergamon, "Satan's Throne." It was where the devil supposedly made his home on earth. I can't confirm or deny the allegations, but I can say that they had free doughnut Fridays at that site, which is now a mosque. Long story short, we were walking by a doughnut stand and a guy offered us doughnuts. Dan and I split one. He offered us more. We decided that we would buy some rather than eating his. We got in line and each grabbed a bag. We noticed that no one was paying for the doughnuts. At that point, we realized that we were taking from a free food stand set up to cover the zakat requirement. Sheepishly, we offered money, even though we knew they wouldn't accept it (they got offended). We ended up taking one bag and split. Overall, it was a neat little town. It had a lot of winding roads up the hill towards the ancient ruins. We decided not to go to the ruins, but it was a good stop.

From there, we made our way to one of the most famous sites in Turkey (Turkey actually has more ancient sites than Italy and Greece), old city of Ephesus. The city was inhabited by 6000 BC and was the second largest city in the world in the first century BC. It was an important city for both the Greeks and Romans as their empires ebbed and flowed in present day Turkey. There was a lot of Christian history there (Paul lived there, the book of John was probably written there, the Epistle to the "Ephesians" was about them, the first church dedicated to Mary, etc). The site was impressive, but extremely crowded with tour groups from cruise ships. We were able to buy some sweet sunhats to keep us from burning, but the crowds made the stop somewhat unenjoyable, despite all of the amazing ruins and history.

After Ephesus, we headed east towards Ankara. Along the way we made a couple of stops at ancient sites, including:

Aphrodisias

- My personal favorite site on this trip. While smaller than Ephesus, it had a lot of great history, was better preserved, and had way fewer people. We got there fairly late in the afternoon, but there were maybe a total of 30 people there. It really felt like we were able to wander and see everything at our own pace without the noise and frustration of of tens of thousands of people taking the exact same pictures as everyone else.

Pamukkule

- Calcium deposits. Looked a bit like snow/ice/salt. It was none of those and tasted like none of those.

Gordion Knot

- Story of the knot that whoever could undo the knot would rule all of Asia. Alexander the Great came through and couldn't untie the knot. Out of anger, he drew his sword and slashed the knot to bits. He went on to rule all of Asia, but died 2 years later. The local oracle claimed that he died because he only technically undid the know. Swords didn't really count.

- The tomb of Midas (the guy who turned everything he touched into gold, including his food and wife) was also there. Scholars no longer think that it is Midas' tomb; however, it is the oldest wooden structure (740BC) known to man, which is cool in it's own right.

We made it to Ankara to hang out for the day with one of our friends from Hawaii who is spending a month there learning the language. It was fun having someone that could talk to the locals, give advice on food, and give some insights on the culture and history. It was also nice to catch up, seeing as we hadn't hung out in a few year. I should mention, he was the guy in Hawaii that I would help brew beer. I think there are some older posts that show the beer making.

After Ankara, we headed north for the Black Sea. Along the way we stopped at Safranbolu, which is supposed to have some great wooden architecture of a specific style. We saw some of the really touristy area and decided to push on. At that point, we had been sleeping in the car for 4 straight days (but were fresh, thanks to the super solar shower) and were getting less impressed with the history, mostly because it was only about 400 years old, rather than 4000. Still, 400 years for a wooden structure isn't bad.

The Black Sea was nice. The town we stopped at, Amasra, didn't have much in the way of sites, but it seemed like a pleasant place. I ended up buying some cheap sandals due to my toe shoes smelling worse than dead things, and we moved on, towards Istanbul.

That night, we showered (separately) in a mature forest and slept in an opening just off of a quiet road. It was a very peaceful place to stop and a great way to end our car camping portion of the trip.

Istanbul was a busy place. We ended up staying there for 3 days, which I think was maybe 1.5 days too long. It was nice to see the sites: Blue Mosque, Ayasofya, Grand Bazaar, Basilica Cistern, Hagia Sofia, etc; however, it was the same as Ephesus: super crowded. In hindsight, late June and early July is the high season for tourism, so we should have been expecting the crowds, but waiting in line like we are at a theme park to see displays in a museum seems a bit excessive.

Overall, it was a great trip. Obviously, there is a ton of history. Thousands of years of different peoples and cultures fighting for, conquering, and subsequently losing the same land makes for a great mix of things to do and see. Most of the sites were literally built on top of previous sites. The further one digs, the older things get.

One of the stories I really liked was of the Basilica Cistern. It was built in the 6th century and subsequently lost to history for over 1000 years after rioting burned down the city. It wasn't until the 1500's that a visiting historian looked into the story that people had magical basements. All they had to do was lower a bucket into the hole in their basement and it came back up with water and, sometimes, fish. He dropped down one of the holes to find a 105,000 ft2 area with 336 thirty foot high carved marble pillars.

Following Turkey, we made our way back to Greece for the return to the UK. We ended up sleeping in a train station our last night, made it back to sunny N. Yorkshire in time to catch up with some friends (Dan made jambalaya or gumbo. We weren't sure what it was called, but it was really good), and then take off for the conference in Wales, which was another good week.

I am just about caught up on work after being gone for 3 weeks and am looking forward to the remainder of the summer and the autumn.

Ireland

2011-06-03T23:46:00.005+01:00

For Memorial Day weekend, I made the short one hour flight over to Ireland with a friend from work for some car camping. Luckily for me, Kevin is a cheapskate just like me and we were able to keep the costs low in one of the most expensive places in the European Union (who knew?).

We started Dublin to pick up the car. After avoiding the toll roads by driving through a park, we made our way to Kilkenny, Cork, Kinsale, Baltimore, Beara Peninsula, Killarney, and Roscrea over the three day trip.

It was a good trip. We did a lot of driving, a lot of talking, and a lot of stopping at random places we looked up in the book along the way. We stopped at an Aldis and the 25 Euros worth of hot dogs in a jar, cookies, crackers, fruit, and breads were enough to get us through the weekend.

St. Canice's Cathedral, Kilkenny. This is the second largest cathedral in Ireland. After the original 6th century cathedral burnt down, this one was started in AD 1202. No one is exactly sure what the tower is for, but the top theories include a watchtower for the invading Vikings (including a door high enough up that all of the monks could hide inside) and a signalling tower for sending mirror/smoke screens to other religious sites.

Smithwick Brewery

Preparing for car camping. This picture is me starting to giggle while brushing my teeth because Kevin didn't realize that I had set the timer on the camera and started taking his pants off. Great timing.

Kinsale was a beautiful town on the sea. It had a lot of forts and history. We even randomly ran into a friend from the UK on the street. What are the chances?

I also liked one of the cheesy poems engraved next to a monument of a mast where all the tour buses dropped off:

"His hooker's in the Scilly van

When seines are in the foam

But money never made the man

Nor wealth a happy home

So, bless'd with lover and liberty

While he can trim a sail

He'll trust in God, and cling to me

The boatman of Kinsale

- Thomas Osborne Davies 1814-1845

As for specific sites, Kilkenny Castle was my favorite. It was well maintained and had a really great feel to it. If I had millions upon millions to spend on a castle, I think I would choose that one. It was a grand and imposing castle while remaining comfortable and livable.

This was our campsite the second night, just at the start of the Beara Peninsula. We picked up some Paddy's Whiskey and Beamish Stout on the way out and spent the evening hanging out and walking around the area.

It was a fun trip and, I'm happy to report, I didn't have any bad encounters with the Irish this time! I think Irish, in general, are very happy to join in a conversation and will readily offer their opinion. The issues I have had in the past have been while drinking in pubs. I think the combination of alcohol and a strong desire to express one's opinion is where we ran into the troubles. Drinking with a dude you already know in a car in the middle of nowhere leads to fewer altercations in Ireland, apparently.

Edinburgh

2011-05-13T23:42:00.010+01:00

I recently made a trip to Scotland for the Beltane Fire Festival. I wasn't really sure what I was signing up for when I said "yes," but it ended up being a pretty good time. I should mention again that I didn't really know what I was signing up for. I make mention of that again because of the fact that our hotel was over $500/night. Split amongst multiple people, yes, but holy crap. I will never make the mistake of not getting details again. I am not ashamed of making a scene about prices. I did the math and it turns out that we could have stayed in a hostel for $435 less a night (that's for the group).

At any rate, the festival was a pagan welcoming of spring. Beltane is Celtic for May 1st, which is when the festival ended (with shirtless painted hippies bouncing around). Leading up to that was a 3 hour interpretive dance without talking. The best part is that all of the characters were out of recent movies. The people in black were the Sith from Star Wars, the blue people Avatars, the Spring Queen was Queen Amidiyla (Star Wars), etc. I felt a little bad for the hippies because about 8,999 of the 9,000 people in attendance of the event were really mostly there to see topless hippies. I was the one exception, of course. I was there for the culture (in actuality, I didn't realize there would be toplessness until I saw it).

No tickets for the after party. In actuality, seeing the hippies under the harsh light of nighttime (versus pitch black) let us know that we were amongst some pretty serious World of Warcraft gamers. We were better off elsewhere, I think.

When we weren't taking in the pagan poetry, we were walking around the city seeing the sites. On Saturday I went my separate way for a bit and wandered the stairways and narrow streets. In case I haven't said it before, I should mention that I think Edinburgh is an awesome city. Something I really like about Edinburgh is how there are secret alleys everywhere. The city itself is built on 7 hills. In order to make more space for building, the Scots of old created massive bridges between the hills, thereby leveling the city. That created a system of underground passageways and spaces beneath the city. That was where poor people lived. Apparently only 50% of the underground spaces are mapped. What that means for the above ground world is lots of stairs going between the built up places and the not so built up ones.

In one such stair filled alleyway I found a museum for Scottish writers. I really liked the Robert Luis Stevenson section. He had a lot of great quotes about traveling. I never realized that he himself was deathly ill at all times, yet he still traveled as much as he could. Often, he would incorporate scenes from his travels years after his trips were finished. He apparently had an incredible capacity for remembering minute details and dredging them up years later. I guess it is one of those "you had to be there" type scenarios, but randomly stumbling upon a museum with his journals, personal items, and a plethora of quotes on display was a really cool experience.

Other than that, we did a fair amount of drinking and staying out until all hours. As I mentioned earlier, there is an extensive underground in Edinburgh. The Grass Market area has a lot of pubs that take advantage of the extensive spaces created by the huge bridges. One such place had about 8-10 separate rooms, including a movie theater. There was also some torture equipment on display, which made for fun pictures (none by me, only the stag do chaps).

Haggis!

More fun: I totally met a real life prostitute! I had no idea (a clue for me should have been when, for no reason at all, she told me her last name was "Hooker."). Long story short, all the bars were closing, but the guys I was with didn't want to go back to the $500/night hotel room, so we went to a casino. I don't gamble, so I was chatting it up with some fun people (prostitutes). After two hours of talking I was still clueless, but someone spilled the beans at the very end. It got a little awkward at that point, but it was 6:00am and the casino was closing. Long night followed by a couple hours of sleep and a 6 hour drive home (I had to drive way past my place to drop someone off). I was very tired for the next work week. That's what weekends are for.

Other than that, I have been very busy. I sat down and looked at my calendar yesterday. It turns out I have plans for every weekend from now through Memorial Day. That's in September. May, June, July, and August are all booked. I have never been more busy on a social level in my entire life. It's a good thing, but my homebodiness is worried. So little time for sleep and chores. I could have worse problems, I suppose.

Someday I will finish the floor, then I will have lots of pictures. until then, here is what it is looking like at this point.

I'm not sure why this is upside down...

The Fence

2011-04-04T22:41:00.005+01:00

This is a post I started weeks ago. Things have changed, but I'm going to post it anyway, just so everyone can compare and contrast (and I'm so lazy that I feel like not putting up these few words that I already typed would be too much of a waste of energy).

Here is what I had: "These last few weeks (editors note: that was March) have been uneventful, overall. Uneventful, perhaps isn't the right way to put it... unproductive is more like it. The underfloor heating is still unfinished and the cardboard is getting ragged. Some day.

"I have been spending a lot of time out and about. A lot of fun, overall, but it really destroys productivity. Not waking up on the weekends until 5pm doesn't allow for much home improvement. Especially considering everything is closed by then. I will start going out less. Soon."

My first try at making beef brisket. Notice the mopped off handle. That was the work of a 36" bolt cutters and angle grinder. I could never fit that pan in the oven due to the handle sticking out too far. Now I can and I have used it a lot. I'm not sure how I got along without it. Giant cast iron is pretty sweet.

The fence has been broken and fixed a few times. Here is the first set of broken pics. I will put up some 'fixed' pics soon. Lesson learned on fixing the fence: a 6' x 6' fence panel attached to the roof of your car wants to act like an airplane wing. Even if you think you have it tied down tightly, try to tie it down better.

Making some progress on the bathroom. I still have to kneel in the shower like the Terminator because I haven't sealed or grouted the travertine. Soon.

I haven't parked behind my flat for some time because the lovely neighbors have so much garbage out there that it's not even worth me moving it anymore. That would be all fine and good, but the kids were hitting my car (parked in the street) with a soccer ball tonight. I love my neighborhood so much.

I held a secret/surprise birthday party for myself. That was almost a month ago. It was a lot of fun, I got to spend my birthday with friends, and everyone thought they were just there to hang out. Suckas.

I will have some more updates to add soon. Some real progress has been made on the floors. Oh, wait, I should add some pictures of my last trip. We went to Nice, France and Monte Carlo, Monaco earlier this month:

Monte Carlo from the area around Prince Albert's Palace. It was a pretty cool city with some crazy expensive (some $100M or more) yachts moored in the harbor.

This is from the town, overlooking the main harbor, facing Prince Albert's Palace area. Speaking of expensive boats, the second from the left in this picture belongs to some Saudi Prince and is the 11th largest superyacht in the world. It has a helicopter landing pad, but as Sheila pointed out, no helicopter. Couldn't spring for the premium package.

We went to the casino. No tuxedo required. I would have to argue that if watching a bunch of old people lose thousands of Euros to the roulette wheel is the most fun to be had in Monte Carlo, then rich people are pretty boring. Considering how small the town was, I was really unimpressed with the Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Bentleys, etc parked in front of the casino. In fact, we saw a guy leaving his place in a Ferrari 3 blocks from the casino. If you are so concerned that people see how much money you spent on your car that you are unwilling to walk 3 blocks to go to the casino (what did the valets and parking cost, I wonder), then that reeks of nouveau riche to me.

Le Chateau in Nice was a nice area. It was originally a fort, but then dismantled after the city was conquered.

The Nice beach from atop Le Chateau.

Bavaria

2011-02-21T17:41:00.011Z

The week in the Bavarian Alps with Mike, Sheila, and Claire went great. We did a lot of hanging out and talking, eating, and spent a few days on the mountain, along with a few other side trips.

The area we were in, Garmisch, was beautiful, especially once in the mountains. We were fortunate enough to get a couple of sunny days and had a great view of Zugspitze, the tallest mountain in Germany, from our cabin. The day trip through the Austrian Alps wasn't bad, either.

(Mike and Claire skiing on the Zugspitze. The sound is nothing but wind. I spent over an hour trying to fix this, but free video editing software off the internet is not kind to me. Just imagine this video set to Wilco's "Impossible Germany" and/or "Sky Blue Sky," both off of the "Sky Blue Sky" album.)

Despite mid-February supposedly having the ideal conditions, it turned out that the snow conditions for skiing and snowboarding weren't that great. In fact, on the lower part of the mountain there was hardly any natural snow left. According to one of the guys I was talking to, who said he has been skiing in Garmisch for 29 years, he has never seen worse conditions this time of year.

When all was said and done, Mike and I were just happy to get some time in skiing and snowboarding. I think the conditions also helped to keep people off the hills, which was also good for us. The World Alpine Ski Championships were going on while we were there and there were a ton of people in town. With that said, there were no lines for lifts and at times it seemed we were the only ones on the mountain. Having peace and quiet in the mountains can be expected for a camping trip, but it's a huge bonus on a skiing/snowboarding trip.

This trip marked my first time snowboarding on a real mountain and that came with a few falls. Overall, I took it pretty slow (I will blame the snow conditions rather than my lack of skills). One thing I noticed is that I kept stopping to take the same picture over and over. I also caught myself not paying enough attention to what I was doing a couple of times. Especially when the sun is out and sky is blue, it's easy to be snowboarding along and find oneself staring at the rocky, snow covered cliffs in the distance while ignoring the ones immediately in front of you.

(My pictures of the castle didn't turn out so well; this is a picture of place mat from the gift shop.)

We didn't ski and snowboard every day. On one of the days we made a visit to Neuschwenstein Castle. It was the castle that Ludwig II commissioned in the 1870's to bring back the glory of the castles of the Middle Ages. The irony is that there was a castle from the Middle Ages on the building site, but he had that torn down because it was built like a real castle... with thick walls, cannons, and minimal windows. King Ludwig was, by most accounts, insane. Neuschwenstein Castle can be cited as evidence of that insanity, I think. It did look like a fairy tale castle (supposedly the Disney castle is modeled after it), but it had nothing to do with real castles. It was all based on fairy tales. All fine and well if you have the money to make your fantasies come true, but when personal dreams come at the expense of bankrupting the country you are ruling and over burdening the people with taxes, something is bound to give. Ludwig ended up drowning under mysterious conditions one day after leaders from his government had him declared insane and committed. He should have seen it coming.

Besides that, there was a good deal of relaxing, talking, and eating. It was a great trip, despite our tendency to miss trains and the last running of ski lifts by two minutes or less on a regular basis. I'm hoping to get the same crowd, along with Tomollie, out to the UK this summer for some travels around England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.

Speaking of traveling in the UK, I have been really tempted to buy an old Land Rover to use as a travel vehicle. The debate is between having something that can seat up to 12 (great for herding large groups to events and road trips) or getting something that seats only two, but has the back converted into a camper. I'm having trouble deciding which is a better plan. Every time I see something I think I might want to buy, I balk until it is too late.

Probably all for the best. I know that they are expensive to maintain and upkeep and that 99% of what I want a Land Rover for can be done reasonably well (or even better, in most cases) in my car, but man would it be cool to have an expedition worthy vehicle. Sadly, "wouldn't it be cool if...," sometimes carries a lot of water with me.

Pleasant Days

2011-02-13T07:20:00.002Z

The sun has been shining longer every day. While the weather is still cold, days like yesterday are just plain pleasant. Sunny and minimal wind. I was able to take advantage by going on a hike with Jon and Anne. It ended up being about twice as long as my estimation, but everyone was a good sport about it.

I leave for Germany in about 10 minutes. I am meeting Mike, Sheila, and Claire for a week of snowboarding and hanging out. It should be a great time. This last week of work has involved me not getting home until 11:00pm or later and not getting to bed until after midnight every night. Taking vacation isn't fun when you have to make up for the work you are missing out on before you go, but it's a good feeling when you get it done.

I hope to have some good pictures of the Zugspitze up in about a week!

Progress... Sort Of

2011-01-30T18:30:00.005Z

Homemade meads of various strength. Drinking is pending successful completion of the floor. I imagine drinking mead on a warm porcelain floor was a dream of the ancients.

Ever since knowing the joy of a heated floor on a fateful night in a rented Helsinki apartment, I have been jonesing for a heated floor in my flat. This weekend was supposed to be the weekend that I made the dream come true. I have the porcelain tiles for the kitchen, the stone for the bathroom, the underfloor heating kit, grout, a wet tile cutter (with a diamond blade that cost almost as much as the tile cutter), and everything else I could think of.

As it turns out, I didn't think of everything. First off, the thermostat required a 30mA fused RCD something or other. I couldn't find that locally, so it's in the mail. My 4' level is still in the mail. And, after double checking the math, it turns out I am slightly short on my porcelain tiles.

Basically, I balked this weekend. It is Sunday evening and I haven't even finished ripping up the old linoleum. In my defense, I got the first couple of layers up without issue, but the last layer is put down with so much glue that I am actually scraping off a layer of concrete as I go. I've worn my crowbar down to a nub already and I'm bleeding from just about every knuckle, my wrist, and my foot. This project is going to take longer than I was hoping, but that's half the fun.

Before

Under Layer One

Under Layer Two

Cement Floor (minus the toughest bits of linoleum)

The bathroom, on the other hand, took less than a minute. No glue and only one layer of linoleum. It was like made-for-tv easy.

Other than that, this month has included a couple of nights out with friends, some hiking, sightseeing, and way too many sporting events in the evening. I'm looking forward to one of my basketball leagues finishing up in the next couple of weeks. Volleyball will be done in March, as will the other basketball league. After that, no more organized sports until next autumn.

Beautiful hike along the Pennine Way near Hawes.

Mount Grace Priory. Each monk got his own multi room house with a fireplace, running water, and a garden. The houses were as big as my flat. If I were to ever go back in time and become a monk, Mount Grace would be the place.

Happy New Year

2011-01-11T17:04:00.009Z

Admittedly, December didn't make my "Top 10 Best Months Ever" list that I publish fortnightly, but the new year has already proved to be a happier time.

For New Year's Eve this year I went to Krakow, Poland. The original plans were to go to London, but that fell through and last minute prices of London hotels made it cheaper for me to go to Krakow by myself. The city itself was one of the few places in Europe to not get destroyed during the war, so there was some really interesting architecture throughout the city. I especially liked Wawel Castle.

Since I had never been to Poland before, I decided to spend New Year's Eve day at one of their most famous sites: the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and death camps. As you might imagine, spending 7 hours learning about the Holocaust doesn't exactly put you in the mood for celebration.

Something that struck me about the whole set-up was that it was so impersonal. Everything was number based. It was a couple of weeks ago now, but some of the numbers that I remember:

- Up to 1.5M people were murdered there

- The incinerators could burn 8000 bodies per day

- 70% of the people were sent straight to the gas chambers from the trains

- Of the remaining 30%, there was a 2-3 month life expectancy at that point from either being killed outright or starving to death

- There was 22 tons of hair found on site (human hair was collected and used to makes things such as socks for U-boat sailors)

- Over 90% of the people killed were Jews

- Only 144 people successfully escaped the camps (about 1 in 100,000)

There was very little in the way of individual stories. I suppose, most all of the personal histories were destroyed, but I thought focusing on a few individuals would help to bring the numbers into perspective. Maybe that's just me. Either way, it was an interesting and informative museum, but I don't recommend it as a pre-New Year's Eve event.

After getting home that evening, I drank some Polish vodka and went out for the bringing in of the new year. There was a pop concert going on in the square. The costumes, sounds, dance moves, and attitudes of pop are the same in every language, apparently. My first act of the new year was to eat a plate of sausages and potatoes, which was well received after the vodka. I ate a lot of street bread, pirogies, and sauerkraut on that trip. All good stuff.

After Poland, I had a few days before heading back to Wisconsin. The first order of business once I got there was to buy some land. I had never actually seen it in person before, but it had all of the things I was looking for: about an hour outside of Madison, waterfront, large acreage, few restrictions, in the Driftless Area, and, perhaps most importantly when it comes to pulling the trigger and buying something, it was in my price range.

The flight to the US was an adventure. I had used my bonus miles to purchase my ticket, which meant more legs of the flight than usual. My second leg was delayed 11 hours due to mechanical issues. Needless to say, I didn't make it back to the US as scheduled. On the bright side, I was upgraded to first class on my transatlantic flight and it was a fully recline-able bed. I was able to sleep like a human being. It's amazing how much of a difference a comfortable seat and a few hours of sleep can make the next day.

After closing on the land, the next big event was meeting up with high school friends. Mike and Sheila were kind enough to host again this year and it was a really good time. The kids were noticeably bigger and adults pretty much unchanged (except for Justin's haircut). I'm slowly whittling down everyone to get them out to Europe.

The main purpose for the trip home was my sister's wedding. We all went to Milwaukee on Friday for rehearsal. The entire wedding weekend was a blast. It was great to have a chance to visit with family and friends that I hadn't seen in years, as well as to meet Andrew's side. Congrats to Kathryn and Andrew!

Lastly, I was able to meet up with some college friends in Chicago. Josh, Mike, and I went to dinner and saw Tron in 3D at the IMAX at Navy Pier. Oddly, I think the last time I went to a movie at the theater it was with Mike and in 3D (and over a year ago). It's kind of our thing. We had a lot of fun reminiscing about rowing, college parties, and life events since then. As for Tron, I'm not sure it was worth the $17 price tag, but maybe if I saw the original I would have a better appreciation. I like Sci-Fi, but Tron really didn't have any "Sci," and the "Fi" was a bit too out there for me.

After a busy week at home, I made my way to the airport to find out that mechanical problems on my plane (again) and weather problems in the south were causing more issues. Originally, it looked like I was going to have to stay an extra day in Philadelphia because I was going to miss my flight to Manchester, but I was able to work with the customer service folks from a couple of airlines to get out on the right day and back to the UK only a few hours after my original arrival time.

And, of course, standing in customer service lines for 2 hours gives you an appreciation for how difficult life is for some people. From the guy talking loudly on his phone behind me about how he was suffering through "hell" (6 hour delay) to the woman who dressed and talked like a man who was losing her mind (also on a cell phone...) and went straight to the counter because the agent there said something different than the agent on the phone. Getting blamed for the weather has to get old. I never want to be in customer service.

I am back in the UK and ready to pass out after spending the night in the air last night (I didn't get spoiled with any upgrades on the return). It was a great trip back and I am so happy that I was able to spend time with family and friends.

Portugal

2010-12-26T21:18:00.006Z

This year for Christmas I got a cheap package holiday to the south coast of Portugal. It was the low season and it was pretty quiet. It was an ok trip, but I was a bit ill, so that put a damper on things.

A good bit of my time was spent either asleep or huddled around the mini-fan heater in my rented apartment. The sickness itself really wasn't that bad; the worst part was the amount of snot that kept coming out of my face. I didn't even realize I was sick until I dropped my bag off in my room and was about to go out, but decided to lie down for a minute before going. When I was finally ready to leave my room, I had slept for 15 hours and snotted my way through a roll of toilet paper. Pretty gross, I know.

I made it out the second day for a couple of hours, but being awake was still not what I wanted to be. I had a bit of a headache and was either freezing cold or only slightly cold but sweating. I made it to a town called Silves for about an hour and a half. The town was considered the Moorish capital of Portugal and a major city between 6-800 years ago. To me, it just seemed depressing. Looking at the town, it seemed that about 20% of the properties were nice, 20% were for sale, 20% looked average, 20% of the properties were abandoned, and 20% looked like they were abandoned, but weren't.

The town itself couldn't have had a population of more than 5000, and all of that was on a single hill. Maybe I didn't read up enough on the history, but nothing I saw really struck me as a shining example of Moorish architecture and culture.

On Saturday morning I woke up and felt much better. In case you wanted to keep track, I had slept 30 of my 40 hours in Portugal thus far. Not a great way to see a new place, but on the bright side, I had the most amazing and vivid dreams. I think not having the option of a DVD collection and internet connection to fall back on allowed me to get a lot more rest than I normally would. Not that watching YouTube clips of Hot Rod is a bad thing, but at times I think entertainment is better (or more 'entertaining') than sleep, when usually, it is not.

I spent a few hours Saturday at the beach in Albuferia and then made a trip to Faro. The beach was nice. It was raining when I first got there, but it cleared up pretty quickly and while it was never quite sunny, it was a pleasant day. Another plus was that the beach was pretty deserted. I saw a few people here and there, but for the most part, it was just me watching the seagulls eat some pretty disgusting things coming out of the storm drains. Well, that, and walking along cliffs and rocks. I also realized how much of a love/hate relationship I have with the water. Being wet and cold are my least favorite things, but I love being next to the water. If I could figure out a way to stay warm and dry while swimming, I may become aquaman. Until then, I'll be happy to make trips to the seaside as often as I can, but will stop shy of getting in.

Faro was a cool old town. At least the old town was. Portugal has decriminalized drug useage, and it looked like there were some locals getting their Christmas fix right outside the tourist/historical area. A bit sketchy, but once inside the bubble of tourist generated revenue, there were a lot more police and no visible signs of drug use.

After and hour or so walking around looking at the old buildings, stray cats, and cobblestone streets, I headed back to the hotel.

The trip ended on a mostly empty plane followed by a long drive home from Newcastle. All in all not the most exciting trip, but I'm glad I got a chance to see a small part of Portugal.

Hopa Thanksgiving

2010-12-01T20:51:00.005Z

Thanksgiving this year came a few days early so that we could travel to Greece with some friends. Thanks to Randy and Sarah for hosting.

Since I don't really have much to say about Greece (besides the fact that it was a good trip, the museums openly admit that Greece peaked around 450 BC, and we found the most amazing restaurant that we went back to a couple of times. Feta cheese and house wine make for a good night), I will just add picture captions...

Cats and the smell of urine were omnipresent in Athens. The cats were mostly all friendly, though.

This is an example of something they found when digging to put in a subway tunnel. You can't swing a dead cat by the tail in Athens without hitting history. Cool for tourists, but probably pretty annoying for anyone trying to lay a buildings foundation (it automatically becomes a protected historic site).

There were a lot of theaters in Athens. No plays that we saw, though...

The protests over austerity measures were still going when we got there, but with riot police on every corner, the protesters were pretty tame.

I think the sanitation workers may have been on strike.

Acropolis around sunset.

Parthenon

Temple of Zeus with the Acropolis in the background and a cat making its presence known.

Huge junk shop with a ton of cool stuff. Unfortunately, the owner wouldn't haggle and I didn't have any bag space to spare.

Acropolis in the late afternoon.

All in all, a good trip. Now it is December already. The time flies.

Scandinavia

2010-10-31T17:27:00.007Z

Scandinavia in late October is cold, as you might imagine, but overall we were very lucky with the weather. The weather hovered right around freezing for our time there, but with minimal wind, it wasn't unpleasant.

Toompa, above Old town, Tallinn

To start the trip, I flew to Helsinki and tried catching a night ferry across the Baltic Sea to Estonia. Unfortunately, my flight was well over an hour late due to the strikes happening in France, so I ended up getting a later start in Estonia than I had planned.

I made it to Estonia just after noon on Thursday. The capital city Tallinn, has two historic sections: Toompa, located on a cliff and the favorite haunt of the German and Scandinavian professionals, tradesmen, and settlers back in the day; and, separately, Old Town, which is between the harbor and Toompa. Old Town is where the local Estonians lived and worked.

Old Town, Tallinn, Estonia

Both areas were really interesting, but I especially liked Old Town. It looks pretty much what you think the towns in fairy tales look like, including their cylindrical towers with conical roofs. Old Town looks much as it did in 1540, when it was decreed that all new buildings be made of stone in order to prevent fire. Wandering the cobblestone streets made for a good day and a half.

City Wall, Tallinn

Estonia will be joining the European Union on 1 January 2011, which they seem to be happy about, but their recent past was pretty rough. They were basically abused by both the Nazis and Communists beginning in the 1930s, which is something I didn't know before my trip there. In the city museum there was an old curator who told me quite a bit about life during the Cold War when Estonia was a Soviet satellite.

Although much of what he spoke about was tragic, he also told me of how Estonia played an interesting role in the final downfall of the Soviet Union. The people decided that they had had enough abuse and began a "singing revolution." Beginning in 1987, Estonians began gathering around the country to sing folk songs (which the Soviets made illegal) and call for independence. After years of progressively larger protests, the Russians tried to stop the revolution and sent in tanks, but the people blocked their paths by putting boulders in the roads leading into the city. The Soviets were unable stop the revolution and it showed how weak the Soviet Union had become. Estonia declared its independence and the Soviet Union collapsed a few months later. While there were much larger issues at play and the Estonians were only a small part, singing is certainly a pretty unique contribution to the dissolution of a failed system.

After two days in Estonia, I took the boat back to Finland in order to meet Kate in Helsinki, which was a nice city. We rented a small apartment for the weekend (full kitchen!) and did a lot of walking around and visiting museums. Finland was interesting in that it became part of Sweden due to war, then in 1809 a Grand Duchy of Russia due to war, and achieved independence in 1917. They were able to maintain independence throughout both world wars.

Looking across the harbor in Helsinki

5,000 year old stone axes, Helsinki.

After Helsinki, we flew to Norway to visit our friend Lewis in Oslo (I met him in New Zealand in 2009. We went car camping). We had planned to rent a car and do some car camping near the fjords. As it turns out, Norway is painfully expensive. Quite possibly the most expensive place on earth. The quote I got to rent a car for two days was about $450. That was for a two door economy car. Basically, if I needed to rent a car for two weeks in Norway, it would literally be cheaper to buy a used car and take a ferry across the North Sea.

Lewis

I feel a bit bad of talking so much about money, but I couldn't get over the prices. Would you like a cup of tea at a cafe? That'll run you $7. How about a tiny frozen pizza from the grocery store? Yeah, $11. A small jar of store brand spaghetti sauce? On sale for $5! (woot). Do you like cheese? Then I hope you like shelling out $20-50 for a pound of it.

Seeing the sites was painful as well. Lewis was kind enough to track down two bike cards for us (more on that later), but to even go to something as simple as the universities geological museum (it rocks.), it was $14 per person. Yes, we spent that much to see rocks. Well, $14 total. The guy at the front desk felt bad that Norway was so expensive and he gave us a 50% discount.

Stave church in Oslo. One of the oldest wooden structures in the world.

While in Oslo, since we didn't end up leaving, we did a lot of hanging out and riding bikes around the city. One thing both Oslo and Stockholm had was a system where you could get a bicycle from a stand, ride it anywhere in the city, and drop it off at another stand. It was all swipe card and electronic locks. It made seeing the city a lot of fun. The cities are also made to handle bike traffic, so you aren't as worried about getting smoked by an errant truck. At any rate, we used those bikes a lot and really enjoyed how convenient they were.

Riding bikes to the palace, Oslo

After 4 days in Oslo, we spent our last day and a half in Stockholm. I have to say, I had the most fun in Oslo, but I think Stockholm was the most beautiful city. It had a lot of great architecture and a really cool layout. With limited budgets, we did a lot of walking around and went to one museum for an afternoon. The museum, called Skansen (the worlds first open air museum), had a lot of neat displays and had historical actors in the town, which was set in the 1830s. We watched some glass blowing (nice and warm in that shop...) and made our way through the displays of traditional housing and other exhibits.

Quiet street in Stockholm. The metal bars on the wall show the age of the building. The ones on the orange building show that it was built in 1740.

The view from our boat cabin in Stockholm

Fast fact: Sweden has a big tobacco culture and almost everyone had city gardens back in the day to grow their own.

Fast fact: Sweden used to control the whole of Scandinavia.

Fast fact: the Stockholm Archipelago is made up of over 24,000 islands.

Seasonal houses in Scandinavia were built on stilts because of the deep winter snow and to keep animals out.

Stockholm

On Friday, we returned to the UK. On the walk home from the train station, we stopped by the grocery store and stocked up on the things that we had been missing out on, including multiple types of cheese, fine meats, and delicious milk. All in all, it was a really good trip and we had a fun time seeing the cities, but I'm ready to get back to prices that are more inline with my salary.

On the bright side, I did get to reminisce about the good old days and revisit some meals and recipes that I hadn't enjoyed since college. All the same, I think I am all set on sauceless, butterless spaghetti and hot dogs for a while.

Blood!, Gorham Scar, and Herring

2010-10-19T22:24:00.005+01:00

European rules basketball is a bit more physical than American style. I've gotten used to it playing over the last year or so, but that doesn't prevent the random injury. In February, it was the broken wrist, last week, I got hit in the face with a fist/elbow while trying to take a charge. I ended up bleeding all over the court and getting five stitches. In case you were wondering, no whistle on the play. In fact, the refs ran past my as the ball made its way down to the other end of the court.

This weekend we went with a few friends to Gordale Scar. We went last year around this time, and it is still one of my favorite hikes. Great scenery. I found out that the scar was a cave at one point, but that the roof collapsed, making the scar. That would have been an amazingly large cave. The pictures don't do the place justice. It is immense.

The stitches came out today, which is good because tomorrow I leave for Scandinavia. I am flying into Helsinki, but I am going to try to catch the last ferry to Tallinn, Estonia tomorrow night. From there, I will come back to Finland on Friday to meet Kate and we will fly to Oslo on Sunday. Our friend Lewis (see the NZ post from April/May 2009) lives in Norway and we plan on seeing some fjords with him (more car camping?). After that, a day and a half in Stockholm and back to the UK. Unfortunately, we won't have too much time to see anything but the cities, but it should be a fun trip. I'm looking forward to eating cold, raw fish for breakfast. I love fish any time of the day. No joke.

1... 2... 3... Floor

2010-10-03T18:43:00.003+01:00

Minus the trim work, the hallway in my flat has been updated. My goal is to get rid of all linoleum before next spring. All that is left is the kitchen and bathroom. The kitchen tiles are on order and I have purchased all of the necessary tools to install them. I'm curious to see what my skill level with an angle grinder is, considering each poorly cut or broken tile will cost me about $10.

1. Start of the project: old linoleum still in place. It wasn't bad, but linoleum sticks to your feet, is cold in the winter, and just doesn't have the same homey feel as real wood.

2. Linoleum gone. Uneven concrete below. This was taken after a lot of de-humidifying and bleaching of some weird white water/mold stains.

3. Making slow progress. The uneveness of the floor led to some weird configurations and stacking of the underlayer / moisture barrier. There is still a bit of downhill and uphill in the floor, but people in England tend to not be as concerned with the details. I think it comes with having houses that are hundreds of years old (and seem to have been built before right angles were invented).

4. Finished (sort of). The trim work is always delicate work, which I'm not so good at. Plus, I need to extend the TV cable. It doesn't have enough length in it to tuck along the sides and it seems that just cutting it would be a cruel trick for anyone who lives here and decides to have a TV hooked up in one of the bedrooms. I still don't have my TV hooked up in the living room, but the cables don't fit into my American TV's jacks and I don't really care about watching TV as long as I have a steady supply of TV-on-DVD available to me.

WI/MI/MN

2010-10-03T17:52:00.003+01:00

In mid-September Kate and I were able to make a trip back to Wisconsin for a week. Kate headed to her parents house the first couple of days and I headed up to the UP for the more-or-less annual cabin trip with the guys.

The cabin trip was a good time, as it always is. The weather was perfect and the timings worked out perfectly for getting to/from. We were all able to travel up in one car (a 2008 Honda Pilot with 36,000 miles on it, no less), which makes it more fun for everyone, especially Adam.

We did the same thing we always do at the cabin: a lot of relaxing with some work sprinkled in for good measure. This year, we made some improvements to the railings (well, I didn't, but everyone else did) on the trail to the water and put in a new porch. I ended up sleeping quite a bit, but considering I was awake for about 28 hours straight on my way to the cabin, that is understandable.

After the cabin, Kate and I made our way to Dan and Jenny's wedding in Minnesota. It was a nice wedding and it was really good to catch up with friends and relive some of the good times from Hawaii as well as to meet some new people.

Following the wedding, it was a painful flight back to the UK and a week of strange sleep patterns. Hopefully tonight we will be to bed earlier. We made the mistake of sleeping until noon on Saturday, so any progress we had made in getting back to a normal sleep schedule was potentially lost. With that said, it felt really good to sleep that long.

I (heart) Scotland

2010-09-12T22:32:00.004+01:00

Things have been very busy recently. Nothing too exciting, but just time consuming. We were gladly able to get away to Scotland this weekend with some friends. I don't know what it is, but every time I go there, I am so impressed with the place. It's a beautiful place to visit and now that we know of a nice place only 3 hours from home, perhaps we will make it up there more often for weekend camping trips. Farmer Jim (the guy who reluctantly agreed to let us sleep in his field) probably wouldn't like that, but we'd figure something out.

The point of the weekend was to do as little as possible. It seems that whenever we travel, we never stop moving. For this trip, we only moved the cars once, and that was to go further down the hill to get out of the wind.

It was a simple weekend. We slept in tents, ate food off the grill (way easier than the campfire), and walked around the hills and beaches. On the drive back down, we stopped off at Holy Island, which is only accessible during low tide, to see the castle and town. I also bought some mead, which is awesome. It tastes like you are drinking slightly alcoholic honey water, but it is 30 proof, so it works its magic pretty quickly.

I have the day off tomorrow, but if all goes well I will get my car to the shop for its required yearly testing and then install a new floor in the hallway. In the near future, I will be putting in some tile in the kitchen and bathroom. I've never used an angle grinder before, so hopefully it goes well. The tile I got for the kitchen are about $11 each, so accidents will be costly.

In just over a week, I will be on a plane for the cabin trip and a wedding. I'm looking forward to it.

Summer

2010-08-22T19:11:00.012+01:00

Our one day of sunshine in Bavaria was well spent

Beer at the lodge at the end of the ascent

The busy summer continues. Over these past few weeks Stefan and Wang Man have come and gone. They traveled from China to Europe for most of August.

Technically, the drinking age is for beer 16 in Germany, but that is often ignored.

Kate and I were able to meet them in Stefan's home town in Germany, Mittenwald. It is in

Bavaria, close to the Austrian border. Despite 3 days of heavy rain, we had a good time.

We were able to get in a day of hiking when the weather was nice. Most of the time was spent

hanging out with Stefan and Wang Man's friends and family, playing soccer, drinking beer, and eating more meats, cheeses, and breads than we should have.

Rainy day at a mountain lake

Pre-flight, Munich

Following Germany, we all flew to the UK for a few days. I had to get to work to prepare for a conference, but we were able to take advantage of the weekend. We spent a rainy Saturday in York and a sunny Sunday walking around Fountain's Abbey.

Cliffords Tower, York

Studley Royal, Ripon

Stefan and Wang Man spent a few days in Scotland. They went to the North Sea camp site that Kate and I stayed at with Allen, but they ended up breaking in the Skoda with car camping due to the rain. Luckily, the rain broke for a great sunset and sunrise. From there, it was a day and a half in Edinburgh, and ended with tent camping in the Lake District.

Following their visit, I was off to the US for a week long work trip. I was able to meet up with some old friends, which is always fun. I hadn't seen Patrick since Australia last April and Dan and Jenny since I left Hawaii. It just so happens that Dan and Jenny bought a townhowse this week, so I also got to take a look at that. The plan is to buy a wedding gift that isn't on the registry. I just need to find something with a lot of gold highlights...

I flew to Germany last night and am currently in my hotel room. I tried (somewhat) hard to stay awake all day, but I passed out on the couch for 3 hours this afternoon and now I am wired at almost 10:00pm. Traveling east to west is so much easier than west to east.

After a couple of days in Germany, I will be back in the UK. Next month, another trip back to the US for the cabin trip and wedding. I'm excited.

Some Rain

2010-08-01T20:17:00.005+01:00

These past few we have been lazy on the weekends. Last weekend we spent a rainy evening at the Opera in the Park in Leeds. Kate got some tickets from a co-worker and we made our way down to Leeds for some culture.

We prepared a pretty large picnic and traveled with a couple of the regulars to our weeknight dinners. We brought a lot of wine, along with some curry, bread, cheese, snacks, and gummy bears. Despite the rain, it was a pretty good time (thanks to the wine?). We are at the point now that a little rain can't ruin a good time, even if it is a picnic.

There were apparently 50,000 other people in the same boat as us, but most of them had umbrellas while we had to settle for garbage bags. A lesson for the next time.

This weekend we went up to Sutton Banks near Thirsk in order to go for a walk around the famous white horse. Sadly, it was not an impressive site. It was run down and hardly looked like a horse. Even from a distance it is a bit hard to make out. It was made about 150 years ago, so that may have something to do with it.

Part of the disappointment was the rain. After about 45 minutes of walking in the rain we decided to go back, but we got stuck behind some old people eating ice cream. We hooked a left on to a new trail, the weather cleared, and we ended up having a good time.

We made out way through some wheat fields, through some pastures with lots of cows, some sheep and goats, and a field of rabbits. We ended up finding the largest natural lake in the Yorkshire Moors (not very large).

At the lake, we found a rope swing that ended up being strong enough to hold adults. We spent some time on that before heading up the hill and back to the car. When all was said and done, it ended up being a good day, despite the wet start.

(You can't really tell, but I am very high up over the water here. I swear.)

On Tuesday Kate and I will be flying to Germany to meet up with my old roommate, Stefan. He and his wife Wang Man are in Europe for a month before heading back to China. After 4 days in Bavaria we will all fly back this way for some time in the UK. I am really looking forward to it.

The last time I saw Stefan and Wang Man was in 2004 when they were living in Germany. I crashed with them for a couple of days as I was backpacking through Europe. One of the things I remember is eating dinner with them in their apartment. We were eating by candlelight while listening to Goldfrapp. As they were clearing the table I laid on the floor and fell asleep until morning. Hopefully I don't repeat that. I felt a bit rude. In my defense, I was really tired.

Scotland

2010-07-11T20:12:00.007+01:00

This year's 4th of July weekend was spent away from large crowds. Seeing as we were celebrating America's independence from Great Britain, we thought it might be better to lie low and head to a place that fought for their own independence: Scotland.

Scotland has an open camping law. Basically, as long as you are not ruining a farmer's crops or bothering livestock, and you are at least 150m away from anyone's house, you can set up camp anywhere. How cool is that? We took advantage of the camping laws and scenery. I think the last time I went camping was in New York in April 2009. It rained a lot on that trip and was very very cold. While it did rain while we were in Scotland, we were pretty lucky in that we were either in the car or in the tent when it was happening.

We traveled with our friend Alan. Seeing as my car had been having issues, we took two cars with the understanding that we may end up in one before the weekend was over. Despite my car operating fine the last few weeks, the oil light came on after about 30 miles of driving. I checked the oil (which was fine; in fact, there was so much coolant mixed in with it, the level was higher than needed), I added some oil, and set out again. We didn't even make it a total of 50 miles before there was a strange rattling from the engine as we crested a hill. The engine light came on (never a good sign), followed a few seconds later by catastrophic failure. All lights on the dash came on and the engine died. I was able to coast to a side road and put my car in the weeds.

We pulled off, let the farmers know our intention to return on Monday, moved all the necessary gear to Alan's car and continued north, an hour and a half behind schedule and loaded into one car.

The weekend included a lot of driving. We got to Glasgow around 1:00am and looked for a place to set up. Despite trying to find some woods before hitting the suburbs, all we could find was sketchy industrial land with fences and barbed wire. We pushed through the city and camped in a field about 10 miles north.

The next day we headed up to Loch Ness. Along the way we stopped at some waterfalls and did a short hike. We bought waterproof, windproof sweaters out of a community center. We ate fish and chips and haggis. That afternoon, after starting up the scenic road along Loch Ness, we stopped for some hiking. We found a cool waterfall and eventually wandered down to the water. Instead of driving further, we decided to spend the night on the shores of the loch.

It was a beautiful night. We set up just off the beach and had a bonfire. We ate cheese, crackers, and deli meat and drank Scottish wine. Around midnight, with light still in the sky, we went to bed.

On Sunday we headed through whiskey country towards Aberdeen. We stopped to buy some whiskey and eat lunch in a small town. Since it was Sunday, not much was open, but we were able to make it to Aberdeen just in time to miss all of the museums and sights that closed at 3:00pm. After walking around the city, we headed along the coast towards Edinburgh.

We were on the hunt for a place to sleep, but the first place we stopped very clearly said "no camping" and was a bit exposed to the heavy north sea wind. We played on the beach and on the huge dunes for a while and decided to shoot for the cliff in the distance. The GPS guided us there and it turned out to be a perfect spot.

We set up the huge 3-room tent on a cliff over the sea and enjoyed the Scotch whiskey while watching the water and sun. The cliff was one step down from a higher cliff, so the wind was not a big issue. We didn't see another soul. It was a perfect spot and is marked in the GPS in case of future trips to Scotland.

The next day we swung down to Edinburgh for a quick walk along the magnificent mile and off to get my car. I had coordinated with a local garage owner; the deal was I gave him my dead car and he towed it for no cost. I think it was a pretty fair deal.

That did, however, leave me without a car. After spending an entire week of staying up past midnight trying to find a good diesel car for under 1000 pounds, I located a Skoda Octavia just north of Newcastle. Kate and I drove up last night and I ended up with a "new" ride. So far, so good. There are a few issues, but the miles on the odometer are low for a diesel and it should get around 60 mpg on the highway. Ideal for the road trips we are planning on taking. Not only that, but the boot (trunk) is huge and, unlike my Daewoo, things seem to work on it. Still too early to tell if it was a good purchase or not, but I have a car once more. That makes transportation much more straightforward.

Today we went to an outdoor play with some friends. It was a production of Shakespeare's "As You Like It." It was a good time. It was on the grounds of an old estate. We showed up early and had a picnic. From there we followed the actors around the grounds where they would put on the various scenes. We carried our chairs with us and got to see a good portion of the grounds. All in all, a really enjoyable way to spend a Sunday afternoon and evening.

Germany, France, and Wales

2010-06-06T18:17:00.006+01:00

These past couple of weeks have come with a good deal of travel. I spent some time in Germany and France, followed by a short car camping trip in Wales this weekend with Kevin, Lisa, and Kate.
Germany was good. It was a short trip, and for work, but I was able to get everything I needed to get accomplished done in two days.

Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris

St. Eustache Cathedral, Paris

St. Eustache Cathedral, Paris

Following Germany, I made my way to France for the Memorial Day weekend. I stayed in Paris, but seeing as it was Memorial Day, it seems fitting that I was able to take some trips to the Beaches of Normandy as well as Belleau Wood. That made for a lot more driving than I would have liked, but you can't win them all. The trip itself was great. Paris is probably my favorite city to visit. There are great monuments, parks, and buildings everywhere you turn. I could spend a lot more time there. Maybe some day I will...

Belleau Wood Memorial and Cemetery

This weekend, with the weather sunny and warm, we took a last minute car camping trip to Wales for some hiking in Snowdonia. It was a bit risky due to the issues with my car. According to the mechanic, my head gasket is going and I could have a catastrophic failure at any time. With that being said, the weather was great and the risk paid off. No major car issues, besides being thirsty for oil. The sun was shining and weather was warm and we ended up with some decent sunburn.

Snowdon, Snowdonia National Park, WalesConwy Castle, Wales; the best castle I've seen so far in the UK.

It sounds like later this summer Kate and I may be able to meet up with Stefan and Wang Man when they are back in Germany.The planning for the car camping trip for Scandinavia has started. We may not make it to as many countries as we would like, but it's shaping up to be a good trip.

Return to Pompei -or- Escape from Italy

2010-05-17T22:38:00.007+01:00

Pompei tiled floor

Here I sit in Naples International Airport, waiting for the airport bus driver strike to end so that I can make it to my plane. Watching the cultural clash in the airport has been fun. My flight takes me to London first, so there were a lot of Brits at check-in and now at the gate. However, I'm still very much in Italy (and will be until the bus driver strike ends).

Pompei

Checking-in was interesting. I was able to get a business class ticket because the economy class was sold out. With the upgrade came the perk of standing in the business class line. There was a skeleton of a British woman, probably at least 143 years old, who was quite in-dignified that she had to wait for the desk clerk to get ready. The clerk was apologetic to the woman: “sir, I will be ready shortly.” On top of that, the economy class desks were ready for customers before the business class desk.

Pompei: the raised stones were so that people could cross the streets when flooded.

Then, there was the guy that looked like he was trying to be in a fashion magazine for men aged 55+ who want people to know you fly business class. He was wearing boat shoes, white pants, a pink button up shirt (with the sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms), and a lime green cashmere sweater tied around his neck. Oh, yes, he also had the coach bags at his feet and his grey hair was slicked back. All he needed was a pair of aviators sunglasses and a yacht parked in a blue lagoon with a 20 year old in a bikini sunning herself on the deck. I've seen that add. I'm hip to his ways: he's made it.

Pompei: outside the court house

The Italians are quite possibly as opposite the British you can get. Italian families of 10 were pouring into the lines, moving the ropes, standing well in front of the yellow line, and not waiting for the customer in front of them. They stand in whichever line; when they get kicked out of business class check-in, they plead a little with the attendant, who offers an apology so sincere it looks that he may cry. The Brits, meanwhile, standing ramrod tall in a perfect queue and watching the Italians getting herded away, are happy that justice has been served. Then, checking their watches, they mutter to themselves about how slowly it is all moving along.

Pompei: mosaic

Don't get me wrong, I love it. It is truly one of my favorite things; watching the interactions between people and cultures. I feel a little guilty about it, but I get secretly gleeful when I look at someone and can predict how they will act. It's probably the closest thing I have to a hobby, unless you count wasting hours on the internet as a hobby. If you do, then I have that locked up as my #1, followed closely by the people watching bit.

Naples: I was here for work and stayed on for the weekend in order to see some sights. I was originally planning to rent a moped or motorcycle and ride the Amalfi Coast, which is supposed to be some of the best riding there is, but Naples doesn't have that sort of rental service available and the weekend ended up being rainy. Riding in the rain is something I don't do.

Naples

Instead, I made my triumphant return to Pompei, my favorite tourist attraction. I should caveat this all by saying that the last time I was in Naples, about 5 years ago, I hated it. It was in a two-way tie with Singapore for my least favorite place I have ever visited. My reasoning for disliking Naples so was, in hindsight, based on the fact that my travel plans were getting altered beyond my control and I got stuck here for three days longer than I had planned. I was a bit emotional about that.

Pompei bath house

At the time, however, the reasons I had for disliking it included the fact that the people are pushy, traffic is horrendous (plus everyone uses their horn like it's their job), and things aren't set up in a logical manner. Everything is a mess; Naples is a teeming mass of cars, scooters, people, vendors, garbage, and stray dogs vying for space in the narrow streets. While I still think all of that is true, I really liked it this time around.

People in Naples remind me of people in China. Everyone lives in such close proximity that they tend to be in everyone else's business. One of the nights I was wandering through the neighborhoods it really stuck me how everyone was greeting everyone else. They all seemed to know one another and acted very familiar towards one another- it didn't matter if they were man, woman, child, young, or old. The stereotype about the Italians being very expressive is, from what I saw, very accurate. Walking around is like listening to the Super Mario Brothers movie.

Another thing that struck me is that people are very comfortable approaching anyone else. It's quite probable that the people I saw in the neighborhoods didn't really know everybody else, they just acted that way. In the train stations people would ask someone a question. It didn't start with 'mi scusi' or hesitation, but instead it sounded more like, “hey, what's what?!” Even crazier is the fact that seemingly random people would go out of their way to stop and answer the questions.

Sorrento

Last night, while waiting over an hour to get into a famous pizzeria (pizza was invented in Naples), there was a crash between a moped and car. The way they drive here, it seems that at any given time roughly 60% of all two wheeled vehicles in the city should be getting crushed by a four-wheeled vehicle. However, that was the only accident I saw (although every car and moped looks like it took part in a demolition derby, so if I was more attentive I may have seen more crashes). Maybe it's just human nature, but the way everyone reacted to the crash gave me a flashback to China. There was a loud crunching sound of breaking plastic, a big thud, and tires screeching (in that order; if the tires came first, there may not have been the other two sounds). Immediately, about 100 people started running to the scene. Not to help, mind you, just to watch. They formed a big circle and everyone was giving their input. It was interesting to watch the watchers.

Sorrento

Getting back to my trip: The first five days were for work, but I got out early on Friday and was able to take a boat to Sorrento. It was a neat town, but a total tourist trap (despite the fact that I'm a tourist, I tend to stay away from the trinkets and 'authentic' garbage that is hawked everywhere). There were two cruise ships moored just outside the city and a lot of people speaking English. Still, it was a place worth seeing.

Pompei

On Saturday I went to Pompei. Last time here I must have had less time to see it because I didn't remember a lot of the sections, only the area by the stadiums. First, a little history of the city. It was established around 300 BC by the Greeks as a trade port. It eventually made it to the hands of the Romans and received a lot of funding for renewal and upkeep from the Empire. In AD 62, there was major earthquake that damaged much of the city. It was being rebuilt, but earthquakes continued to be common and in AD 79 the city still looked like a giant construction site. In that year Mt Vesuvius erupted. The eruption happened in phases. On the first day, about 2m of volcanic stones and pebbles covered the city. Some people were killed and some roofs collapsed, but for the most part everyone was okay. The next day, it was a very fine ash that fell on the city; another 2m or so. If you are counting that's 12 feet of volcano guts covering the city, which protected the buildings. As the fine ash was still falling, Vesuvius released a poisonous gas that killed all animals and people in the area. The ash continued to fall and perfectly preserved the shapes of the bodies (after the flesh rotted, there were hollows in the ash layer) and buried the city completely. The city was lost for centuries. It was re-discovered in the 1500s and excavation began in the 1850s. They are still excavating to this day.

Pompei

If you've never been to Pompei, I would have to describe it to you as just plain awesome. It is so well preserved that pots and pans were left in place and in tact, some with food still in them. The paint remains on the walls, columns remained standing, and tile mosaics can still be seen in the floors. The streets still have the rut marks from chariots. Walking in Pompei is like walking in an abandoned city, not a town or small 'historic site,' but a no kidding, full-sized city. Also, it doesn't have the dead feeling that ruins have. The better preserved houses look like they could have been lived in 10 years ago. The fact that it didn't die a slow death of desertion, but instead was preserved in a vibrant, rich state makes a big difference. They had houses with bedrooms, kitchens, dining rooms, gardens, bathrooms, and running water. The city had restaurants, markets, temples, banks, recreation areas, and businesses large and small. On a basic level, life 2000 years ago wasn't all that much different from today. I just really like thinking about that. So, in conclusion: if you find yourself in Italy, go to Pompei. You won't be sorry.

Pompei: rut marks from carts still visible in road.

Pompei: largest of 3 stadiums; gladiator battles were popular.

That was the most exciting part of the trip. Other than that, it was lot of walking around the city and eating pizza. Now, I'm in the airport waiting to find out if I will be able to get home. The volcanic ash is apparently causing issues. Getting to London shouldn't be a problem, but going north to Manchester may be.

In the end, I made it to London, but my Manchester flight was cancelled. Thanks to Kate working online in the background, I found my way to the trains bound for Manchester airport in order to pick up my car. When all was said and done, I was only 3 hours behind schedule.

Other than that, the last month has included hiking, a trip to Chester, eating outdoors when it's warm (enough), and preparations for an impending visit from my boss. Kate cleaned the flat this weekend (no coercion on my end, I swear), which is awesome. Now all I have to do is catch up on the work I meant to do this week and I will be ready for the visit next week, including a trip to Germany and France. Good times will be had by all.

Hiking alongside the lambs

Dinners in the garden.

Room Completed

2010-04-14T19:14:00.003+01:00

The magic happened, somehow. Replacing the flooring, while a bit pricey, was actually easier than fixing the walls.

The floor only required laying down an underlayer, measuring the planks, cutting it (with my sweet new circular saw), gluing it, and keeping everything tight with a rubber mallet. We actually completed the floor more-or-less by accident on Easter. We purchased the supplies the day before and were going to do the flooring the following weekend; however, at around 3:00pm on Sunday we decided to do a row or two of flooring in order to see if there was anything we needed before doing the job in earnest. 7 hours later, we were done. We hadn't eaten all day and were very sore from bending over and moving materials, but we were done.

I ended up spending more than I wanted to on the flooring, but I think it was worth it. Instead of getting laminate or particle board with veneer, I got 15mm solid maple flooring. The best part is that you can stand on it with bare feet and your feet don't go numb. The wood give warmth back much better than laminate. And it looks better.

Behold:

What it looked like the day I bought it.

What it looked like after the walls were finished and the carpet was out.

What it looked like once the floor was done.

What it looks like with our 1930's bedroom set picked up at the auction. (Could have gone with the furniture from the 1800's, but it was more expensive and pretty chewed up).

It feels really good to have finished. I wish I would have taken pictures of what the walls looked like after we got the wallpaper off. They were cracked up and covered in mold and multiple blotches of different colors. Besides the obvious health concerns of sleeping in a room with moldy walls and a nasty carpet, I think that living in a room that doesn't have silly decorations is also good for your mental health.

In other news, I have started shaving with a straight razor. For years I have been debating getting a straight razor set up and diving in, but I have always balked at the cost. I recently had a birthday and Kate got me a sweet Dovo straight razor with all the necessary accoutrements.

Unfortunately for my face and blood supply, it takes a while to learn how to do things correctly. All of the websites I have gone to have talked about how everything straight razor shaving related is an 'art.' Ever since I got a C- on an art assignment in 4th grade for painting a bird with legs that bent like a humans (bird knees bend the other way!), I have not had much of an affinity for art. My first try:

There wasn't too much blood and it was a really close shave, as you can see. I've since gotten better at bleeding less (only 2 cuts this morning), but I think that my lack of artfulness has prematurely dulled the blade. It sometimes feels like I am scraping the hair off of my face instead of cutting it. Soon I will have to either get a wet stone and try to hone the blade (which may result in destroying it) or I will have to hire someone to hone the blade once more. I am failing in the hanging hair test.

Other than that, not much new. The weather is s l o w l y getting warmer. We have been eating 'in the garden' more often. Hopefully we will have some exciting trips to report on soon, but both Kate and my passports are in the hands of the embassies for renewal. Mine is because I expire soon and Kate's is because of an entirely different reason.

Home "Improvement"

2010-03-21T21:57:00.005Z

This weekend did not go as planned.

The idea was to finish cleaning the walls, prime them, and paint them. Sounds simple enough, but I am not what the Brits call, "Mr. FixIt."

After a month of looking at bare, mismatch colored walls (which was an improvement over the previous wallpaper), it was time to get them painted. With some difficulty, we moved the wardrobe that came with the flat into the spare room. It isn't a very nice piece of furniture, which may be why it was left behind, but it also doesn't fit into the hallway while assembled, which is another good reason to abandon it. After an hour and a half of taking apart and putting back together, it was out.

The room was now empty minus the bed, which we could work around. The only major piece of the puzzle left was the removal of the radiator. We watched the YouTube videos, bought the proper tools, and got a late start at it.

Things went wrong pretty quickly. The draining of the radiator wasn't too difficult, but when I tried loosening the other side of the radiator, the nut wouldn't budge. It was so tight that the entire radiator shifted and bent the water pipe, which caused it to leak. The leak started off slow, but became worse as I tried to fix it. I couldn't get it to stop and I couldn't get the connector detached. I turned off the water supply to the flat and drained the pipes as best I could, but the heating system was still full of water.

After trying in vain to find the right tools around the house, I made a run to Asda just before it closed in order to buy something that could make the leak stop. Asda is more of a grocery store, but it is also open until 10:00pm on Saturday, which is 5 hours later than just about anything else. No, they did not have plumbers tape, but I picked up a hose, some zip ties, a sealant strip, and a bottle of wine.

When I got home, the leak was still going, unabated. Without having much of a choice, we decided to take the whole radiator off by disconnecting it where the pipe met the radiator rather than where the connector met the radiator. This meant there there would be an exposed pipe with no stopper.

My right arm, newly out of the cast, is still not completely usable. I disconnected the radiator as quickly as I could while Kate moved to cover the pipe. While we did try to be quick, there is only so much you can do with a hundred-or-so pound radiator and one hand. As I pulled the radiator off, my right hand gave way and a 4' high fountain of sludgey radiator water spouted from the pipe. I tried to cover it with my right hand, meaning an even more tenuous hold with my left. Kate swooped in and she covered the fountain, but not before getting sprayed all over. The next two minutes we spent trying to stop the water while somehow propping up the radiator that was still connected to the wall bracket on the opposite side. It was fairly difficult.

The first thing we tried was to use the cork from the wine bottle to plug up the pipe. In my haste to get the cork out of the bottle, I mangled it a bit. It was also too big for the pipe, so I tried to whittle it down to size, which meant more mangling. On to plan 'b.'

Due to the high pressure of the water, there was no way to get anything to plug it. Maybe if we had a proper rubber stopper, yes, but corks and towels, no. The hose was the only other option. We cut it up and rigged it with the zip ties so that the water would flow through the hose into the bathtub. That somewhat worked, but we ended up losing a lot of water and couldn't get the hose to sit on the pipe properly.

We used various methods to catch the water and get it out, all of which were somewhat successful. In the end, the water pressure abated and we were left with a soaked carpet and detached radiator. By this time, it was about 1:00am. I turned on the electric heater and dehumidifier to try to help with the sopping wet carpet and we passed out.

The next morning I was up by 6:30am (the days are getting longer once again) and I checked the carpet. The heater didn't work at all, so I moved it closer and waited for Kate to get up. She woke up a while later to the smell of burning plastic. I had put the heater too close and it started melting the carpet. Remember, the water supply to the house is still off at this point; good thinking on my part. On the plus side, the carpet was still so wet that it would have a hard time burning. At the same time, it's polyester and highly flammable, so the water may not have stopped it from setting ablaze. Luckily, all that came of it was a few scorch marks. The carpet needs to be replaced, though, due to the water. It seems futile to attempt to get the water out from under the carpet and carpet pad we stopped trying.

The next day I still couldn't get the connector off of the radiator. The pipe was still exposed and the water supply remained off. It's amazing how disgusting having no running water can make you feel. When the stores opened at 10:00am, I was there to try to find the proper equipment.

Plumber's tape was easy enough to find, but they didn't have the right pipe covering. That would mean more time with the water supply off. I got home and ended up using a candle to heat the original connector. That, in combination with my over-priced, over-sized spanner wrench loosened the nut enough to get the piece off. A little plumbers tape and a few turns of the wrench and we were ready for running water and a non-leaking radiator pipe.

From there we finished up with the walls, took some furniture to the tip (garbage dump), and started the priming. The priming experience was a major disappointment. Due to the number of small cracks and unevenness in the walls, I purchased a product advertised as a simple and effective primer to smooth that all out. It was expensive (GBP 30, or about $50, plus an additional GBP 8 for the special applicator), but it looked so easy, it had to be worth it! Nope. It was nothing more than extremely expensive drywall mud. Thick, difficult, and messy mud. The idea was to cover the entire room with this stuff and basically create a new layer of wall. Terrible idea; I wish they would have been more clear in their advertising. Liquid would have been much easier.

So, after an hour of struggling with that, we gave up. Kate did some gardening and I went to get proper primer. While getting the primer, I was talking to the sales associate and, with a can of primer in hand, I asked was the difference was between what I had and the item next to it called "basecoat." He said that the other stuff filled in small cracks and covered discoloration better. Perfect! That was what I wanted; and this stuff was liquid and half the price of the drywall mud. I put the primer back and got the much much better basecoat.

I got home, read the can, and discovered it was basecoat for metal and wood. Not for plaster. Epic failure. At that point I decided to give up for the day and take a nap. The house remains full of clutter, the walls look about the same as they did before we started, the carpet is ruined, the radiator is sitting outside in the garden, and it is 11:00pm on a Sunday night.

I'm not sure how, but money-saving projects always seem to cost a lot for me. There may be a lesson in all this, but I'm going to try to ignore it. Next weekend we will be re-attacking. Hopefully something akin to magic takes place and we are in a better place in a week from now.

RwooV: Great Success

2010-03-14T20:39:00.008Z

This weekend we made our way up to the Lake District. We had planned on going the weekend prior, but it didn't quite work out. That ended up being a good thing. I had the day off this past Friday, so I had a whole day to make preparations.

First of all, Friday was a very productive day for me. I booked flights for Dan and Jenny's wedding in September (multi-destination flights that take us to the middle-of-nowhere Wisconsin, then days later to Minneapolis, then back to Manchester were somehow cheaper than the Manchester to Minneapolis flights that left earlier in the morning and had longer layovers. I'm not complaining.), which will also give me a chance to meet up with the guys for a trip to the cabin (the real cabin, no offense, Adam). I also had a chance to do a good deal of cleaning, go to the auctions, and turn my Daewoo Lanos into an RV.

My excitement with Daewoo camping can be coupled with my disappointment with how expensive hostels and hotels are in Europe. I love traveling, but I don't like spending my money on places to sleep. Yes, a comfortable bed can be priceless at times, but the vast majority of the time I will gladly sacrifice a bit of sleep quality in order to be able to travel twice as long with all of the money I am saving on lodging. Sleeping on overnight trains is my ideal way to go. Get on a train, hang out, go to sleep, and wake up in the next city. With that being said, train travel in Europe is more expensive than driving your own car. Even with gas at around $8/gallon (£1.15/L), one can save money by driving. Kind of backwards in my opinion, but trains are still popular, so what do I know. At any rate, if one can drive one's own car, that means more freedom to travel away from the train routes, the ability to store one's things without having to haul them around in a backpack, and free lodging.

As for how legal sleeping in a car is, I can't say. Because of that fact, I wanted to make something for the car that would keep people from being able to see in without looking too obvious that someone is sleeping inside. My solution was to add black curtains on the sides and back as well as one of those metallic sun blockers for the windshield. If I park in a neighborhood outside of the city center, I should blend in nicely and not have to worry too much about crime. I'm less enthusiastic about trying to find a hidden corner in the middle of no where, because a car in the middle of no where automatically raises suspicion. I am a fan of hiding in plain sight (my only major concern being the condensation on the windows). With about £10 worth of material, my Daewoo became an RV that most people wouldn't suspect. The RwooV will hopefully serve us well.

The trip itself was a good time and got off to a good start. As we were leaving my flat, a police officer was standing outside my door. Oddly enough, we were just debating the legality of having alcohol in a car in the UK. Everyone else said it was legal, but I said that I wouldn't feel comfortable until I read the laws on that. Kevin told me that he talked to the police and they told him it was cool. Then he opened the door and the police were outside.

The reason for the police visit was because of the kids in the neighborhood (the ones who have so far destroyed my hedge, broken a window, broken three sections of my fence, tore shingles off of my shed, have sworn at me, thrown rocks at me, waived their genitalia at me, etc etc). At any rate, the policeman (with a social worker standing next to him) told me that earlier that day they were vandalizing someone's property and the old man who owned the place came out to take pictures of them. Well, the "children" broke his camera and beat him up. I'm not sure how badly, but the cop said that it was bad. Because of that, they were seeing if anyone else in the neighborhood had any issues with them. I was happy to tell him about all of the troubles I had. I'm not sure what they do about terrible children here, but I hope they are removed from the neighborhood. That would make my summer much more peaceful.

The drive to the Lake District was two and a half hours of increasingly narrow and steep roads. Around 11:00pm we found a place just outside of Glenridding, next Ullswater lake, to park. We spent a while looking at the stars before putting our window shades in place and calling it a night.

The next day we had a picnic on the beach for breakfast and slowly made our way to the hiking trails. We made a lot of stops along the way, but eventually we were making our way up the hill.

After an hour and a half of hiking we were at the top. We stopped for lunch and began our hike down.

The trees were a bit think and the hill steep due to taking a goat trail rather than a wider path, but we made it to the lake level fairly quickly and walked back to the cars before it even started to get dark. All in all, a very pleasant, sunny day of hiking.

York & Ingleborough

2010-03-07T22:22:00.009Z

After two weekends of not leaving my house (no joke, I can be lazy), I was determined to get out and about. That was helped this weekend by the fact that there is no more sleeping in until all hours of the day on the weekends. Part of that has to do with there being more daylight, but, without getting too into the details, Kate's job has also had a direct impact on earlier weekend mornings. The parking situation at Kate's new job requires that she get to work really early to get a spot, which led to her joining a gym across the street from her office so that she didn't have to sit in her car for two hours, which leads to her going to bed really early, which has led to the both of us being accustomed to waking up earlier, which has led to more productive weekends.

The plan for this weekend was to drive up to the Lake District on Friday night, sleep in the RwooV, and spend Saturday hiking. Due to some logistical and weather concerns, that didn't pan out. By Saturday morning we had decided to hike in the Yorkshire Dales instead. Upon looking out the window and seeing that it was raining, we finally settled on the Jorvik Viking Centre in lovely York.

Augustine relaxing outside of the worlds 2d largest Gothic Cathedral.

After fighting to find free parking in the touristy town of York, we made our mile and a half walk to the city center. After waiting in line outside to get in to the museum, they blocked the door about 5 people in front of us in order to let a large group of 8-10 year olds in. Not that they seemed like bad kids, but we decided to go elsewhere. We settled on York Minster, which is the giant Gothic cathedral that has many world records to it's name.

"5 Sisters" windows. Probably actually originally called "5 Cistarian" windows because they were paid for by the Cistarian order at Fountains Abbey.

We tagged along on an hour and a half tour given by an old man who was constantly sidetracked by anecdotes going back as early as pre-WWII England. I, for one, am generally pretty happy to listen to old people tell stories, so it was an enjoyable tour. We learned quite a bit about the minster and the trials and tribulations it had gone through. One of the cool things that we were able to stick around for was an evening choir performance. We didn't go into the choir section, but we listened while sitting above the heaters in the very back of the nearly empty building. It was a nice way to end a long day of walking around the cold building.

We sat back here above the radiators while listening to the choir. We were far away from the choir, but the cathedral had great acoustics.

Today, Sunday, we were up early once again and made our way to the Yorkshire Dales for our planned day of hiking. The weather was about as perfect as one could hope. Right around freezing, but with no wind or clouds. It felt much warmer than the snow and ice would have you believe. We walked about 7 miles at a leisurely pace and had a pretty sweet turkey and avocado sandwich to keep us from getting too hungry.

The hike today was part of the Three Peaks trail in the Yorkshire Dales. We climbed to the top of Ingleborough, which is the tallest of the peaks (my altimeter read just over 2000 ft, so nothing to brag about). We had tried the peak once before, right before Christmas, but didn't make it to the top due to heavy fog and impending darkness. When we got to the top today and walked towards the trail we had done before, it seems that we were literally steps from the top last time. Maybe 20 vertical feet. Of course we had no way of knowing that at the time, but it's funny to look back and see how we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Only about 1/3 of the fenced off areas with sheep had lambs. This picture happens to be following the 2/3 rule.

Some of the major highlights from today's trail included Gaping Gill, which conveniently enough, is described as an underground cavern big enough to fit the whole of York Minster. Seeing as we were at York Minster yesterday, that helps us to appreciate just how huge the cavern is. Also, we walked past, but did not pay to go in, the best show cave in Great Britain: Ingleborough Cave.

It may not look like much from this angle, but there is a huge underground cavern beneath that sad looking sink hole.

This reminds me of the cop that gave me a stern talking-to earlier this week because the 1" x 18" rubber faring on my car was loose. He couldn't believe I would operate a car in such a dangerous state. I held my tongue while thinking about the fact that the Brits are seriously considering making kitchen knives illegal because people get stabbed with them and the knives are, therefore, too dangerous to be legal. I think a logical person could argue that more people would choke to death from eating huge chunks of food (that should have been cut to a smaller size with the help of a knife) than from stabbings, but being reactionary and banning knives is kind of fun, in a tragically comic sort of way.

Things here are so dangerous, they don't even bother trying to hide the fact that playgrounds might as well be graveyards. We are all doomed.

Busy Month

2010-02-21T22:07:00.010Z

It doesn't seem like it, but it's been over a month since I last posted. The funny thing is, the more fun things you do, the less time you have to write about it. I have been pretty busy the last month. Kate and I got our English Heritage membership cards, so we have been going to a few sites each weekend. I think we are already about halfway through getting our money's worth and we are only a month into membership. We have also half-heartedly (on my part) started to paint the walls in the bedroom and I took a trip to Germany, which, as you can see from the picture of Jens and Anne above, was a really good time.

We haven't had to travel very far to see the sights. Fountain's Abbey, Rievaulx Abbey, castles, parks, and more are all near by. Some pictures of the highlights:

Fountain's Abbey. It was one of the largest and most powerful during its time (1200's were its prime), but it was already in steep decline by the 15th century. To put that in perspective, Columbus hadn't sailed the ocean blue yet.

Rievaulx Abbey was another important site, but this one died a slow death over a couple hundred years. By the time Henry VIII declared himself the leader of the Church of England and tore the place apart, they only had 20 monks. You can't really tell by the pictures, but it is set in a valley surrounded by steep hills. It had been described by some of the monks as one of the most peaceful places on earth.

Helmsley Castle. This was near Rievaulx Abbey; in fact, the giant, black haired fellow who defeated the Scots and established the castle, Walter Espec, gave the monks the land for their abbey. The castle itself was only attacked once and didn't fare so well. Many of the defenses were over 500 years old and were always only for show (the gate, for example, could be defeated by simply walking around it). It did, however, have some pretty cool (but expensive) costume ideas on the gift shop.

I also had the chance to visit Jens and Anne in Germany. I have been trying to get over to see them since I arrived in the UK. The timings never quite worked out. Last fall Jens had suggested that I try to make it there the weekend of 15 February in order to celebrate Carneval. I was able to the be part of the excitement in Cologne and Xanten for costume wearing, drinking, parades, and blood sausage.

I had a great time and everyone was very kind to let me tag along on their outings. The least funny part of the trip was when I drank too much, fell asleep in a bar, and had my pocket picked. The funniest part of the trip was during the parade in Xanten. Their big thing is that they throw out Blutwurst (blood sausage) from the last float in the parade. By the end of the parade, everyone was pretty drunk, and there were a lot of empty bottles and glasses on the tables lining the sidewalk. As the blood sausage came flying in, it knocked around and shattered the glass, people were getting pelted with bags of meat, and it was bit of a mad dash for the food. Maybe you had to be there. Trust me, it was comedy gold.

Other happenings from the last month:
Surprise birthday party for Little Phil.

Free deck furniture acquired. This will be nice in the "summer" (even though it's still cold outside), especially when I fire up the oil lanterns I took off the Madeline & Nine.

I broke my wrist in two places. I wish I could tell you it was from battling bears holding sharks, but in actuality, it was from playing basketball. I thought it was a sprain, but after two weeks of being injured with little improvement, I went to a doctor (the first being one of Jens' friends we were drinking with in Germany). Sure enough: broken. I will be in a cast for about 3 months, assuming that I don't need surgery to put a pin in the bone.

Already, after only 3 days, the cast smells bad. This could be a long few months. Especially for Kate.

A Drive Down South

2010-01-18T14:33:00.007Z

Things have been going well here in the UK. Work has been busy, but not in a bad way. I feel like I have been getting a lot done, which is always a good feeling.

The weather here has been particularly cold and snowy. As so many other things, "cold and snowy" is very relative. This winter is officially the coldest and snowiest on record since 1979, but the temperature has been barely below freezing and there was only about two feet of snow.

I, for one, have really enjoyed the snow. Besides the fact that we have had multiple work delays because of the weather, it has been nice to see everything covered in white. When I lived in Hawaii I didn't ever travel anywhere cold in the winter. I stayed around the islands and would spend my Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Martin Luther King Day, and Washington's Birthday either at the sand bar on Oahu or at another one of the Hawaiian islands.

Last weekend Kate and I decided to drive down to Stonehenge and Bath in southern England. It was a trip we had planned for New Years, but ended up postponing due to buying a bunch of furniture at an auction.

The trip was good. It was a lot of driving for what we saw, but it was also a good test run for future road trips. We plan on going to continental Europe for some longer road trips, but I have a really hard time paying the going rate for European hostels. No, $30 a night (per person) might not seem like a lot, but I grew accustomed to the $2-6 rooms in Asia. Anything more than that seems like too much money to pay for little more than a dry place to sleep with no privacy.

Solution: turn the Daewoo into an RV! I used to sleep in my Honda whenever I took long drives and I was a big fan of sleeping in the car in New Zealand. The only bad part of the NZ trip was that I didn't have a sleeping bag and it was below freezing outside. I didn't necessarily sleep that well, but the fact that I wasn't paying anything on top of the price of a rental car made that fine by me. With a sleeping bag, I would have been sound as a pound, even without any alterations to the car itself.

The Daewoo is not a lease or a rental, so I can do anything I want to it. None of the interior electronics work (radio, power windows, lights, etc), it is relatively small, and isn't really a joy to drive with the lack of horse power, excessive road noise, and questionable brakes.

Despite that, I think it will make a good RV. For one, vans are too obvious and in places where sleeping in your car is illegal, you are going to get caught. On top of that, roads here are narrow and fuel is crazy expensive (currently about $7.60 per gallon in the UK).

Like I said, last weekend was a good test run. Updates to follow...

Some highlights:

Stonehenge: we spent about 10 minutes here. Not very exciting, but an obligatory item on the "things to see" list if you live in England.

3000 year old open air Roman bath fueled by natural springs in Bath, UK. It was pretty expensive, but we had the place to ourselves all morning. Sitting in an ancient hot spring watching the clouds roll by on a Sunday morning in the middle of January is time well spent.

Sherwood Forest, like in Robin Hood. I am genuinely curious as to whether or not Nottingham still has a sheriff.

More Monday night fun.

Holidays Complete

2010-01-03T14:11:00.010Z

The remainder of our trip to Wisconsin went well. After skiing/snowboarding, Kate and I made our way to Las Vegas for a few days. We picked up the rental car and checked in to the MGM Grand around 4:00pm on Tuesday afternoon. The hotel has over 5,000 rooms, which is a bit mind boggling to me, but as long as we made it to correct elevator bank, we didn't get lost. The hotel and casino, as far as I could tell, took up over a city block of real estate. It was big.

At any rate, we checked-in, dropped off what we didn't need, got some groceries, and made our way to the Grand Canyon that same day. It was a pretty long drive and I was fighting off sleep for a while before we decided to pull off the road to sleep. Sleeping in a car is never the most comfortable undertaking and the fact that the temperature outside was well below freezing that night (Arizona... who knew) didn't help. After about 6 hours of rest, we drove the final 30 miles or so to the park.

We started off going to a couple of look out points before talking to the rangers about hiking. They told us that we needed poles and crampons due to the snow and ice on the trail. We rented the poles (very helpful tool) and Kate bought some crampons. We were on the trail by 11:00am for about 4 hours of hiking.We had decided to hike Kaibab trail, based on recommendations by multiple friends and websites. Ooh-Aah Point, about a mile down the trail, is noted as being the best single point for viewing the canyon. We spent about 30 minutes there and could have stayed longer, but groups of Japanese tourists and college kids in aviator sunglasses and bandannas were starting to pile up behind us, so we moved on. The trail wasn't too crowded (rumor has it that it can be packed in the summer), but it certainly wasn't deserted, either.

For anyone who hasn't been to the Grand Canyon before, my recommendation is to go. We only made it about 3 miles down the trail in 2 hours due to stopping every 50m in order to take in the views. The red rocks, black shadows, white snow, green trees, and numerous other shades in between made for breathtaking view from all angles. We could have definitely spent more time in the canyon, but we turned around, as planned, at Skeleton Point and made it back up to the top in under two hours.

After hiking, we went to a few more look-outs before starting back towards Las Vegas. It was another tiring drive back to Vegas. Something about long stretches of road at night do not agree with me. Driving puts me to sleep, I'm finding out. Bad news if I had to drive a lot at night, but I've spent the last 5 years living on islands and never driving far, so maybe I'm just out of practice.

We made it back to Las Vegas around midnight and slept in the next day until almost noon. I have no way making a comparison to any other hotels in Las Vegas, but I can unequivocally say that the MGM Grand has some really comfortable beds.

We spent Thursday walking around to the different casinos and got the obligatory prime rib, crab legs, etc buffet that night. Las Vegas wasn't really my scene, truth be told. I'm glad I went, but I don't see a need to ever go back. We didn't gamble (no spot for putting pennies in the penny slot machines!) and didn't spend any money on shows or shopping (besides groceries). We didn't even stay up past midnight.

Las Vegas City Center Water Swirly Thing. Kind of fun to watch...

Highlights from the rest of the trip include attending my little sister's college graduation, hanging out with friends, family, and relatives, some more snowboarding, and a lot of doing nothing in front of the TV. It was a good trip, but by the end I was ready to get back to work and away from the TV.

For New Year's, Kate and I were planning on going to Stonehenge and Bath, but that fell though. There were warnings about the weather and we stumbled upon an auction that resulted in buying a mahogany dining room set and a couple of really comfortable, oversized couches. We could have waited until Monday to pick them up, but the only vehicle for moving available was my Daewoo Lanos. We needed Friday to get two couches, a dining table, four chairs, a side table, and small hutch to the house. A good portion of Saturday was spent moving four old couches to the tip (garbage dump).

I was happy to get everything sorted over the weekend. The dining set is the right size for our small place and the 8' x 4' two-seater couch could very well be the most comfortable couch ever made. At any rate, we should be all set on furniture for the remainder of our time here in the UK.

Home for the Holidays

2009-12-14T19:36:00.005Z

Kate and I have left the green pastures of northern England for the snow of the upper Midwest for almost three weeks. We have been back for the last five days and have both made trips to our parents' houses as well as some visiting of friends.

The cabin trip to the U.P. was canceled this year due to "weather," but I'm still pretty sure we could have made it. Instead we went to some of Adam's relatives' cottage. It was much closer, it had running water, electricity, and didn't involve a trudge through a half mile of snow to get to it. Needless to say, I was a bit disappointed, but we were able to spend the weekend catching up, so it wasn't all bad news.

We were also able to get everyone's family together at Mike's house for an evening. It's a bit strange to see so many children running around since I can remember when we all rode our bikes around talking about how crazy it would be when we had our driving licenses in a few years. It's like everyone magically became old in an instant. Not old, maybe, but adults. There is no denying it; we are all productive members of adult society. Although, I still have the same mountain bike from back in the day, so we can't be that old.

Yesterday Kate and I went skiing/snowboarding with my brother, Mike, and Claire. Today we are off to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon for a few days. After that, it's my little sister's graduation and then less than a week before flying back to the UK. Time is passing quickly.

Thanksgiving

2009-12-03T19:49:00.008Z

This year's Thanksgiving celebration was somewhat non-traditional. We decided to celebrate on Monday night with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, rolls, pumpkin pie, etc. We had the full spread and about 12 guests. Seeing as we only have four full sized plates and four (now 8 thanks to Lisa) small plates, we had to use paper plates and plastic cutlery for some people, but it all worked out.

I made the turkey and Kate made the stuffing, mashed potatoes, and rolls. Since we have a small kitchen and limited prep time, we asked everyone to bring a dish to pass. Nothing against the Brits and their choice of dishes, but I think it's fair to say that Thanksgiving is a decidedly American holiday. Chicken nuggets and cocktail weenies did not fit in as well as green bean casserole, but they were good none the less.

On Thanksgiving Day, Kate and I flew to Malaga, Spain, for a weekend in the region of Andalusia known as Costa del Sol. It did live up to it's namesake when it came to sunshine on the first few days, but it was much colder than we were expecting. It was in the 60s the entire time (the week before when we booked the trip it was in the 80s) and the last day brought heavy down pours. All the same, we had a good time. After 3 1/2 years in Hawaii, I am a bit spoiled when it comes to beaches. The town we stayed in, Torremolinos, had a beach that was like Waikiki in that it was surrounded by hotels, restaurants, and shops, but at this time of year it was without all of the people or warm water. We were really surprised at how cheap our trip was (we got roundtrip airfare and a one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen for about $200 per person), but once we arrived we figured out that the town had more or less closed down for the winter. We never saw more than 5 people on the streets at any one time and the beach was deserted. It was a ghost town.

In the end, it worked out well. I have never been able to sit on a beach for more than 20 minutes without feeling like there was something else I should be doing, so even if the weather was nice, I doubt we would have been hanging out in the brown sand. We took advantage of the convenient public transportation and spent one day in Malaga and another in Granada (not pronounced at all like Canada, but fun to pronounce it that way anyway).

Both towns were similar in that there was a lot of semi-modern sections of town with a center that looked as if it hadn't changed in a thousand years. We spent our time meandering through the narrow streets, looking at old buildings and forts, and eating our loaves of bread with Vaca Risa cheese triangles and smoked salmon. All in all, it was a really good time. Granada was a bit better than Malaga. In part because it was older, and in part because we were wearing pants and jackets vice slippahs with bare legs. Like I said, we expected it to be warmer than it was.

This week has been very busy with work, but next Thursday I will be flying back to the US for almost three weeks of vacation. Kate and I have already booked a trip to Las Vegas (but we will probably spend most of our time at the Grand Canyon) and are planning on skiing/snowboarding as well. Other than that, I will be attending my sister's college graduation and just catching up with old friends. I'm looking forward to it.

The first thing I will be doing when I get back; however, is heading up to the UP for a trip to the cabin. Most of the guys will be there and it should be a great time, despite the cold. We may make a side trip to the Paulding Light, but we will see. Rumor has it that it can be difficult to find the place to go, so our trip may end up more like this one.

Malham

2009-11-15T20:50:00.012Z

The days have been getting shorter, but so far I have really enjoyed that. It makes me feel less guilty about leaving work earlier. To me, it just makes sense that it's time to go home when it's dark and it's way better to go home at 5:00pm than 11:00pm.

Another great thing about the change in daylight hours is the light. When I drive to work in the morning, the sun makes everything look incredibly vivid; almost surreal. The green grass, white sheep, the trees with their yellow and orange leaves, and even the gray rocks are more vibrant. It's really impressive. Whoever said that England was a dreary, gray place wasn't paying much attention.

Things have been going really well at work. It's starting to slow down a bit and I have been able to work on more long term sort of work instead of the day to day things. Sports have kept me at work until about 10:00pm every night, but I am enjoying 'playing' sports again. I joined two basketball teams and a volleyball team. Football finished up a few weeks ago, which is good, because that one was outside and even with games at 5:00pm, we were running out of light.

This weekend Kate and I installed a pretty large mirror in the bathroom (up to this point I only had a 6" mirror for shaving), booked a trip to Spain, and went for a hike in the Dales.

The mirror bit isn't very exciting, but it's helpful. It helped me to realize that a new sweater I got is way too small. It's made of alpaca wool and is super warm, but it looks like a child's sweater. I probably won't be wearing that one as much anymore. Thanks mirror.

As for Spain, we were messing about online on Saturday and found a really good deal for a package vacation. For £260 (about $440), the two of us get round trip airfare (with checked luggage; that counts for a lot on budget airlines over here.) and 3 nights hotel in a one bedroom apartment across from the beach in Torremolinos, Spain, on La Costa Del Sol. Basically, the Brits don't really celebrate Thanksgiving, so we won't be missing anything but the chilly weather. I'll be sure to include an update on that trip once we return.

Today we went for a hike. It was a last minute decision to go and we were a little short on daylight towards the end. With that being said, when the sun was shining, we had that magical light I have been enjoying so much (the picture at the top of the post is a good example).

The hike itself was very pleasant. It involved country roads, trails, streams, cliffs, waterfalls, sheep (of course), a couple of small towns, and limestone rock formations.

The highlight, for me, was the Goredale Scar. We parked in Malham and walked first towards the scar. The book we had included some really great maps with terrain features and relief drawn, as well as clear directions and descriptions; however, the choice of pictures was a bit silly. For example, this is the picture they showed for the scar (this is actually a picture I took, but it's from the same angle as the picture in the book):

Not terrible, but why didn't they turn around, walk down the hill and show it from this angle:

Much more interesting from this angle, if you ask me. Or, since they would have been at the bottom of the hill anyway, why not turn around once more and take a picture that looks like this:

That happened to be a lucky shot in that the sun was doing it's magic, low in the sky, and the clouds broke for a minute right when the light was tucked behind the edge of the scar. This picture doesn't really give a sense of how bathed in light everything was. Nor does it show how huge the land features really are. For reference, you can see some people off to the left. If you ever come to England, it's definitely a site worth seeing and you can practically drive up to it, if you want to.

The rest of the walk was nice, but the main excitement in the geography department included much smaller limestone formations.

By the time it was all said and done, we had only been walking for 3 hours, but it was already dark (in this picture, it's only 3:45pm):

We made our way home and just finished out the weekend with an oversized chicken and mushroom salad with hot chocolate and earl grey tea. It was a pretty good day.

Kate

2009-11-05T18:55:00.008Z

It has been a long long while. Some of the highlights from the last six weeks, in order, are:

1. Went to Oktoberfest in Munich.
2. Battle with the neighborhood kids over?
3. Kate moved in.4. Tuesday dinners moved to Mondays.
5. Weekend trips.
6. Halloween parties.
7. Front row at a Wilco concert.

Trails

2009-09-14T18:52:00.005+01:00

The weather this past week has been beautiful. On Labor Day, after spending two days in the house for no really good reason, I decided to go for a walk. I thought that 30 minutes out of the house would do me some good.

I walked to the end of the lane and found a trail that used to be railroad tracks. I walked on that for a few minutes and found some fields, woods and streams. I ended up meandering through the woods until I came to a small river. I followed the river. About 2 hours later I was in the next town over, Knaresborough. The weather was as near to perfect as one could hope for in September.

I spent about an hour in Knaresborough eating chicken and mushroom pies and drinking blackcurrant juice since I left the house with nothing more than my cell phone, wallet, and keys (everything else, you can buy on the way, right?). For the walk back I popped up the map and my position on my iPhone and walked home as directly as possible. I was on my couch eating popcorn and drinking some GeeBee in under an hour. All and all, a very pleasant day.

This past weekend I went for a run on the trails. I turned right instead of left and ended up in Starbeck, another part of Harrogate. After 30 or so minutes of running, I had to stop and find a trail back. I was hoping to make the run into a loop back up Skipton Road, but got a bit turned around. As much as I hate to admit it, I am a bit dependent on my iPhone. I tried finding paper maps at bus stops without luck and I didn't recognize any of the roads. When all was said and done, I walked/jogged home, finding short cuts through some fields, and made it back within the hour. Another fine morning.

What awaited for me at home was less pleasant. I'm still having issues with the neighborhood boys. They have taken to climbing on my sheds. I still laugh at myself every time I tell the kids to, "get off the shed." (That was a Will Ferrel line on Saturday Night Live, I think) At any rate, I spoke to a woman watching the boys and she was somewhat receptive to my asking her to keep the boys out of my yard, but a mere two hours later, they were running through.

As I was leaving on Saturday afternoon, one of the boys took to swearing at me and calling me names through a hole in the fence. I laughed it off, but when I got home later that night to find that there were scratch marks on my door, I wasn't laughing. I spend a couple of hours that evening trying to figure out the UK laws on how to deal with this type of situation. For better or for worse, property owners are a bit hamstrung here. It's not too dissimilar to the US, but where in the US I get the impression that the laws err on the side of the property owner, it seems that they err on the side of the trespasser in the UK.

In the end, I went out and bought 500g of 40mm (about 2") nails and put those on the vertical surfaces where the kids climb. I thought that that would be a good stop gap measure while I ordered an anti-climbing paint. The paint is something I learned about around midnight while researching on my iPhone. Basically, it never dries and it stains clothes. I figure that will be a good solution. It doesn't look terrible and it should have the desired effect.

About two hours after putting the nails in, I heard a commotion outside once again. Once again I went outside to see what was happening. I was surprised to find that the bratty red-haired kid was smashing the nails sideways with a hammer while being held on top of the shed by an adult. The man was surprised to see me and seemingly even more surprised that I confronted him.

As if it wasn't obvious, I told him that I put the nails in place because I was trying to stop the kids from climbing on the shed. I could tell he was really uncomfortable and a bit embarrassed for getting caught. He just kept cutting my off by saying, "yeah, ok," over and over again, but I was unrelenting. I was polite, calm, and collected, but I didn't let him walk away like he wanted to. I explained about the broken window that the kids admitted breaking, the two sections of fence that they admitted breaking, the torn up hedge, the swearing, and, what I consider to be the last straw, the scratched up door.

His only comment, as he was leaving, was that it wasn't his kid, but he would pass the message along. I'm not sure the message got passed.

So, that brings me to my new plan: anti-climb paint and a lot of spikes. I'm considering a thorny, climbing plant, but that would take a little while to grow. Long story short, I have run out of patience with the kids. My upstairs neighbor told me that the more they are told not to trespass, the more they make a point of doing it.

(Great defensive posture at this place. If I ever buy in the UK again...)

I feel a bit ridiculous, but I'm thinking of keeping a bucket of ice water by the door and dousing them as they pass through as the next step. I'm trying to decide whether or not that's over the line...

Summer Travels

2009-08-21T17:34:00.012+01:00

Giant's Causeway

Last meal before living off of sandwiches for a few days.

Entry from Tuesday, 18 August

Giant's Causeway

The past few weeks have included a fair bit of travel. A friend from Hawaii, Patrick, was out here for a work conference and we took a trip to Ireland (some call it Fireland due to so many people having red hair) for a few days. We didn’t have much time, but we were able to hit the main attractions in Belfast and Dublin.

Giant's Causeway

Our day and a half in Belfast included a trip to Giant’s Causeway. It got its namesake from the hexagonal stones along the shore and cliffs (as the story goes, the giant Finn McCool built it to kill a Squirtish giant, but there was no fight and the bridge was destroyed). The real reason for the shapes had to do with crystallization and the way the magma cooled, but giants make for a better story.

City government center (the exact names escapes me), Belfast

Story behind the Red Hand of Ulster:

Captain of raiding party: "First one to touch the coast with their right hand owns it."

Soldier: (after cutting off his own hand and throwing it ashore) "BOOYAH!"

Black cab (ours was red) tour, Belfast

We also took a black cab tour of Belfast to see the old division lines of Protestant v. Catholic. Besides that, we did a good bit of walking around and even got to argue with some old people. Maybe I just haven’t had much luck with the Irish I’ve met, but I haven’t been able to carry on a conversation with any Irish people without it turning into them spewing a fair amount of hate and discontent my way. The evening in the Belfast pub started with some friendly banter about physical stature and John Wayne, but quickly turned into a discussion about who really should have won the American Civil War, how certain ethnicities are deceitful, and how America was a big bully. It seem that we were really just witnessing the start of an elongated downward spiral, so we left after two drinks.

Dublin started with a tour of the Guiness Brewery. Guiness happens to be one of my favorite beers. The key take-aways from the tour were: 3 million pints brewed there each day, each one is perfect, only 4 ingredients used (water, hops, barley, and yeast), and Guiness is good for you.

We also went to a few museums, one of which had quite a few mummified bodies from hundreds of years ago. Each one was slaughtered differently; some had body parts removed, some were slashed to death, others bludgeoned, still others were strangled. Bottom line: death and destruction appears to have been a hobby on that island for quite some time.

After the trip to Ireland I had two days to get ready for my trip back to the US. It was a 10 day work trip, but it just so happened that one of my friends from Hawaii who moved to Maryland got married on August 15th. Kate was able to come down from New York for the weekend, so it was a double bonus. The ceremony was nice and they had a really good menu: filet minon and crab cakes. Money.

Double fisting to start the evening (open bar)

Last call; down to one at a time

Although I was only in the UK for about 4 months, there are some definite differences I noticed from my short trip.

Some of the nice things about the US:

- If you are willing to drive for a short while, you can find anything you need at any time, day or night.

- Things are cheaper and bigger.

- The roads a big and wide and don’t have a roundabout every mile and a half.

Some of the nice things about the UK:

- People know how to use roundabouts correctly (it’s painful to watch their use in the US).

- Buildings don't look or feel like they were thrown together overnight by a developer looking to make a fast buck (our hotel in Annapolis was ridiculous. I really wish I took a picture of the "Greek" fountain.)

- No humidity

The trip was pretty good overall, but had its strange moments. This past Monday was somehow both fun and sad. I sat around my hotel room in my underwear eating microwave dinners, followed by going to a movie by myself. It’s like I couldn’t figure out what would be more disheartening, so I did both. While the tag line for the movie, 500 Days of Summer, was, “it’s not a love story, it’s a story about love,” it was, in fact, a love story. The theater was full of teenage girls traveling in packs and severely obese middle-aged balding men with goatees flying solo. And there was me.

Today I had some time to kill after my final meeting and before my flight, so I went to an all-you-can-eat buffet. Those are always a study in a certain element of society not found in other parts of the world. Anyone who wants to pick on how America does things has to go no further than a buffet. For under $10 (GPB 6) you can get stuffed with hot dogs, hamburgers, fried chicken, pot roast, pastas, potatoes, tacos, Chinese food, creamy soups, pies, cakes, ice cream, and more. Yes, they also had a fruit bar as well as a vegetable bar, but those weren’t very popular. I don’t work out as much as I should and I don’t always eat as well as I should, but I try not to make it a habit. For a good percentage of the people at this particular buffet it seemed that they were doing everything they could to be unhealthy. It makes no sense to me, but all I can do is sit silently and judgmentally and watch the show.

Another thing I did on this trip was to spend like crazy. My reasoning was that everything would be much more expensive in the UK, but I bought so much junk that I went over my weight allowance for the flight. Luckily I was early and was able to move some heavier pieces into my carry-on luggage (you’d be surprised how much Chaco sandals weigh) and get half a pound under, but I probably didn’t need the paper towel dispenser or quite so many spikes.

That brings me to my next subject: the crazy old man of the neighborhood. As it turns out, it’s me. A short background: I live in a maisonette (a detached house split into two apartments) at the end of a block of terraced homes (row houses). My flat also adjoins a bike path. Long story short, my yard is the only place people can cut through without going through someone’s house or around the other side of the block. In the grand scheme of things, it’s really not that huge of a deal, but I don’t like it. On top of the people coming through I also have animals pooping in my driveway and neighborhood kids tearing up my hedge making a fort. As you can see, there is a pattern of encroachment.

That’s where the Home Depot come in. Since I was here in the land of cheap and plenty, I decided to purchase some defensive counter-measures to the encroachers. The idea is to develop a layered approach to security and to do it one step at a time.

- Step 1: I am going to start closing the car gate to my driveway and drive some 3’ fence posts into the opening of the hedge.

- Step 2: I am going to lock the gate and add a good deal of chicken wire to the posts.

- Step 3: I will add some of the awesome spikes I bought to my car gate as well as the “No Trespassing” and “Beware of Dog” signs. As for the kids in front, I might move some of the animal poop from the driveway to the area under the hedge. They already used a fence post to take down two sets of chicken wire and make a bigger hole in my bushes, but I have a feeling that crawling through poop will prove to be more trouble than it’s worth.

- Step 4: If that doesn’t work, I will need to figure out how to attract colonies of hornets and spiders to my bushes. It can’t be too difficult.

I was thinking that things would slow down after the conference, but my schedule is still somewhat busy for the next month. I have another work trip to Germany planned and I was able to magically match it up with Oktoberfest. The only question is whether I want to stay an extra weekend on both sides of the trip or just one weekend. I’m pretty sure I am just going to go with one. I am planning on staying with Jens and Ana (they came out to Hawaii about 2 years ago). Jens, our German foreign exchange student my senior year of high school, is always fun to hang out with and he speaks German. Always a plus when in Germany.

Other than that, nothing too crazy planned. I have another Friday off coming up at the end of the month, so I’m thinking about going somewhere. Maybe Spain, but I’m not sure. After only 10 days away from the UK I am already looking forward to getting back and relaxing at home. That might officially make me a crotchety old man; I can’t say for sure.

Entry from Wednesday, 19 August

I got stranded at the airport last night. Due to the thunderstorms, I didn’t make it to Newark in time to catch my flight to Manchester. Luckily for me, Kate lives in New York. After an air train ride, NJ Transit train ride, some walking, a subway ride, and some more walking, I made it to Kate’s apartment. I didn’t get there until after 2:00am, but she was nice enough to take the day off work and we were able to hang out. We went through the obligatory bring/don’t bring tour of her apartment. Long story short, talk to me in a couple of months and I might have a smoothie maker staring at me from my kitchen counter. Money.

Entry from Thursday, 20 August

I made it back home in one piece. I did get some bad news today, but I’m trying not to let it bother me too much. So far I have been somewhat successful at blocking the bad thoughts, but I am really tired and might dwell on it more when I am rested. Long story short, I have no one to blame but myself. I didn’t read all of the laws and did not do enough research. It’s amazing how much money one can save by speaking to someone with experience. Long story short, if I knew two months ago what I know now, I would most likely have an additional huge chunk (five figures) of British Pounds Sterling in a couple of years.

Entry from Friday, 21 August

As for the house, there's no going back. I will have to chalk this one up as a "learning experience" and move on. I did some more research today and figured out that it isn't as bad as it seems. When all of the factors are considered, yes I am still out a considerable amount of money. Bottom line, I do have a roof over my head, so I have no grounds to complain!

Settled

2009-07-27T17:13:00.007+01:00

From the time my stuff was delivered to getting everything sorted and settled, it took me less than a week. In large part that was due to the fact that I forced the issue by having a house warming on Friday, 4 days after delivery. The house warming went well. I made some beer brats and cheese dogs on my grill. We can check the grill off the list of things to test. It successfully held burning charcoal briquettes while simultaneously hold raw meat mere inches above those.

Even though I have only been there about a week, the new place feels like a home already. I'm sure it has a lot to do with the fact that I have all of my stuff for the first time since March, but more than that I just really like the neighborhood and set up of my place. It has everything it needs and nothing else. I wouldn't want anything bigger or smaller. It is perfectly sized for what I need it for. Not only that, but it is dead quiet. I live at the end of a dead-end street and the opposite side of the house is a bike/running trail. Yes, I can hear footsteps and music from my neighbor above, but there is no outside noise. It's almost strange how quiet it gets, but I love it.

Another thing I really like is the kitchen. For the first time, I have a convection oven. I'm still learning the ropes on that one, but the fact that I can cook a deep dish pizza in 8 minutes is awesome. It has led to a fair amount of burning, but I've already gotten the hang of it for cooking fish and other meats. I plan on testing out how well it fares with bread tomorrow at my first weekly TV-on-DVD night in the UK. Wednesdays are no longer workable due to open gym basketball night, but Tuesdays are just as good. I made a ton of chili yesterday. So much chili, in fact, that not all of it fit into the refrigerator and I had to freeze half of it. I think that marks the first time I have ever made something fresh and put it into the freezer. Hopefully it doesn't end up sitting in there for the next couple of years.

Other than organizing, cleaning, and loving my new place, I haven't really been up to much. I did have a chance to go to some friends' place for a Tour de Franzia party this past Saturday. Basically, you dress like a bicyclist and drink boxed wine. The goal is to get through all of the stages (different types) in the fastest time. Like what often happens when I plan on only having "one or two" but don't have a good reason for setting that limit for myself, I had a lot more. I don't really consider myself to be too competitive, but I do consider myself to be skilled at taking advantage of the situation. I took about 20 minutes to drink my first glass of wine and the next closest person was on their third. By the time I hit 3, most people were on 6. By the time I hit 6, most people were on 7. When all was said and done, I finished second. I think they should re-write Aesop's Tortoise and the Hare fable to cover drinking for speed. It applies.

Coming up this week, a friend from Hawaii who is now in Australia will be visiting. We are going to spend a couple of days in Northern England followed by a few days in Ireland. After that, it's back to the US for about 10 days for a conference and a wedding. This summer is flying by.

Pictures and Video of My New Flat

2009-07-21T17:06:00.005+01:00

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I moved in. It's done. The video is post-cleaning inside, pre-yard work, and pre-delivery of all my stuff.

I am at the library now since my internet doesn't work, but I will include some updates soon. I think if I get this published I can type out the rest on my phone. Not fun, but do-able.

Flat

2009-07-03T20:34:00.010+01:00

Things here have started to level out. I don't have my house yet, but I'm pushing for next week still. I stopped by the house today to take another look. The yard has really fallen into disrepair. The grass and bushes are very overgrown and there is garbage everywhere. I will have a project ahead of me, but that's the fun of home (or flat, I suppose, but I do have a tiny yard) ownership, right? It beats paying the £80 per month that I would have forked over at the other place for grounds maintenance fees. Mowing the grass once a week should not cost that much.

At any rate, Wednesday July 8th is what I am hoping for. I spoke to my solicitor today and he said the paperwork should be ready to sign by then, but I won't be able to move in until at least the 10th. I will pester him more on Monday and see if I can't get that changed. I would really like to move in as soon as possible. These next two months are going to be very busy.

Nothing too exciting going on here. I've been hanging out quite a bit with the same crowd. They all live within a couple of blocks, so I'm not sure what is going to happen when I move a mile and a half away. It doesn't sound far, but it's way farther than two blocks.

The only items of interest I have to add are that I went to a Medieval Faire a couple of weeks ago in Knaresborough. Not quite as exciting as I was hoping. It was more geared toward children (note the dragon), but it was free, so I can't complain there.

Not very scary. There were some people dressed up in Medieval clothing. That's pretty amusing.

This is what toilets (called a garderobe) looked like in Medieval times. There was a sloped schute would help everything roll out into the river. Midgets or children would crawl up the exit hatch to sneak into castles and prep the doors before an invasion. My question: why not put a metal rod through the middle of the schute? Another interesting tidbit: they used the garderobe to store clothing. The smell kept the moths away.

Awkward wedding photo?

I've also had two flat tires (3 if you include my flat spare tire when I pulled it out of the trunk) in three weeks. I don't think I've ever had a flat before coming here. Today I had a huge screw puncture my tire. It was about a quarter inch across. Luckily my spare tire (which was actually the tire that was flat a few weeks ago) had air this time. Unfortunately, there was no saving my tire. I had to order a new one. Although I could risk not getting a new tire, my recent experience has taught me that I should not. It's just really strange that I never had a flat before coming here. Until the day before I sold my Honda in Hawaii I didn't think that it came with a jack. Since 2001 I had been driving that car convinced that if I got a flat I was plain out of luck. Word to the wise: crafty engineering means that jacks can be stashed in a panel that looks like it should lead to your tail light. Another piece of wisdom: if you clean your car more than once every 8 years, you may discover things like that sooner than I did.

I also wanted to mention that I have been doing CrossFit for about 6 weeks now and it works. It's a fairly new fad, but a good one. It involves a lot of pull-ups and Olympic style lifts, but it's all about intensity. The intensity makes it a good cardiovascular workout. This past Wednesday night I played two hours of basketball without getting winded. Three months ago I probably wouldn't have lasted 20 minutes without being doubled over. If you hate being winded from climbing stairs but also hate running, I recommend looking into it.

Happy Independence (from the Brits, ironically) Day!

London

2009-06-16T19:52:00.008+01:00

Queen Elizabeth II. Check out her title at the end of the post.

London Bridge, staying up.

I had this past Friday off and was able to take a trip to London. I was in the locker room at the gym on Monday and they were talking about how Billy Elliot had won some Tonys the past weekend. Since I had Friday off and loved the movie, I decided that it was a great opportunity to get down there. The play was pretty good, but I preferred the movie. It's hard to get into something with a lot of singing in it. The movie was believable and did what a movie was supposed to do: it convinced me that the characters were real and I was able to relate to them. In the play/musical, that wasn't the case. Every time something big happened, it turned into a song. I don't know about you, but have never once in my life spontaneously burst into song before/during/after a particularly sad/happy/funny event.

The trip was very compact. I arrived by train a few hours before the show on Friday. I spent the whole day Saturday on my feet and moving. I was able to make it to most of the "must-do" tourist sites. I had a bit of luck when I showed up for the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. As it turned out, it was the Queen's Birthday. I got to the palace about an hour before the "Trooping of the Colour" ceremony began and I moved up to about five people from the front. I saw the Queen, the entire royal family, and a lengthy military passing in review complete with the old uniforms, horses, and clanking swords. I couldn't help but laugh a few hours later when I was at the National Gallery and I saw a painting from the 1700s of a similar ceremony at Buckingham Palace. The palace, uniforms, and equipment looked exactly in the same in the 1700s as they did that morning.

Besides Buckingham Palace, the Saturday highlights included Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Big Ben, the Tate Museum, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum, the London Bridge, and Hyde Park. I was also able to make a walk past the V&A Museum, Natural History Museum, and Science Museum later that evening in preparation for Sunday, as well. After such a busy day I slept well, despite the fact that I was in a hostel room with 27 other guys and someone was playing with my foot (which was hanging into the walkway as the bed was too short and I had to squeeze my feet under the bunk bed bars) at 4:00am.

Sunday was less eventful. My train left at 2:00pm, so I was hoping to make it to 2-3 museums before I had to leave. Unfortunately, the underground was more or less shut down. It took me 2 hours and a lot of changing of plans just to get to my first destination. By that time, I figured I would be better off making my way to King's Cross just order to avoid missing my train.

I made it back to Harrogate in time to meet some friends for dinner. All in all, it was a really nice weekend.

The Rosetta Stone.

Big Ben

Apparently they made a movie about me. I love my reviews.

Yes, the mummies and 5,000 year old statues were cool, but I especially like the roof at the British Museum.

Westminster Abbey

Trooping of the Colour, Buckingham Palace (The Queen and entire royal family are in this picture. Look closely.)

As promised, here is the queen's official title, at the time of crowning, as per Wikipedia:

Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas Queen, Defender of the Faith, Duchess of Edinburgh, Countess of Merioneth, Baroness Greenwich, Duke of Lancaster, Lord of Mann, Duke of Normandy, Sovereign of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Sovereign of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Sovereign of the Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick, Sovereign of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Sovereign of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Sovereign of the Distinguished Service Order, Sovereign of the Imperial Service Order, Sovereign of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, Sovereign of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, Sovereign of the Order of British India, Sovereign of the Indian Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of Burma, Sovereign of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, Sovereign of the Royal Family Order of King Edward VII, Sovereign of the Order of Mercy, Sovereign of the Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of the Companions of Honour, Sovereign of the Royal Victorian Order, Sovereign of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem.

And if that wasn't enough, here are the some she has acquired since gaining the crown in 1953:

Sovereign of the Order of Canada, Sovereign of the Order of Australia, Sovereign of the Order of New Zealand, Sovereign of the Order of Barbados, Sovereign of the Order of Valour, Sovereign of the Order of Military Merit, Sovereign of the Order of Merit of the Police Forces, Sovereign of the Queen's Service Order, Sovereign of the New Zealand Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of St. Andrew, Sovereign of the Order of Logohu, Sovereign of the Order of the Star of Melanesia.

Believe it or not, the list goes on. Her business cards must be super annoying.

Almost Home...

2009-06-07T12:29:00.015+01:00

I will be at the very end of this street.

I will soon have a house here in Harrogate. It's not the place I previously posted about, but there is a story behind that. To begin with, I was never extremely excited about the flat with the holes in the doors and no appliances in the kitchen. I was looking at it as an investment. With some work, I think I could have sold it in a few years for a decent profit. I still think that's the case, but I needed a place to live in the near term. Judging from how slow the speed of business is here, I could have been waiting to move into that place for months while the flooring was getting done or the cooker getting installed. Plus, it was right underneath some gigantic power lines, had no assigned parking, no outside storage, and was in a somewhat crowded neighborhood. It felt like an apartment, basically.

Living room with gas fireplace.

The realtor really messed up my bid on that first place, as well. I placed my bid over the phone on a Thursday because I was in Germany. On Saturday I called them back to see what sort of progress they were making. They had no news for me. I asked if there was anything I could do to speed up the process and the guy recommended that I bring in my mortgage in principal (pre-approval) paperwork. Even then he didn't make it sound like it was necessary, just that it would be helpful. I walked the paperwork over to their office that Saturday morning. The following Tuesday I called the bank that is providing the mortgage to let them know that I might be getting a place. The lender said that I should have been notified already of their decision, so she called the realtor for me. She called me back in a few minutes and told me that the realtor needed my mortgage in principal paperwork before they could place the bid on my behalf. By that point I was very frustrated. I called the realtor back and told them that they already had my paperwork. I told them to submit my bid. They finally did, but then called me back to tell me that someone submitted a bid before me. Long story short, I had to give an update with my "best and final offer" before noon the next day. At this point I really didn't want the realtor to get the commission, so I called the other realtor that had the property listed, but they didn't seem to be any more helpful.

Front of house.

During lunch that day at work I started looking online again for a 2 bedroom place in Harrogate. I found one at the very peak of my price range, but I immediately liked it. It had a garden (yard), it's own parking, a bbq pit, a gas fire place (just the idea of having a fire place makes me look forward to the cold winters with their 20 hours of darkness each day so that I have a reason to use it.), and it was in move in condition. When I got home from work I looked at the place again. The price had been lowered that afternoon by £5,000. At that point I knew that I wanted the place and that I had to get my bid in quickly. I set up a viewing appointment with the realtor and drove to the house to look through the windows that night.

Side of house abuts "push bike" / walking path

The next day I submitted my "best and final offer" on the first place, which was less than my first offer by £5,500. I'd still live there if I got a great deal on the place, but I was pretty sure that the offer wouldn't be accepted. (Apparently the other one wasn't either; the place is still listed). I also took a look at the new place. It was in good condition. Not great, but definitely move-in ready. I put in my bid for the full asking price. It ended up that someone else put in a bid that day as well, so it went back to the "best and final offer" stage. I raised my bid by £2,010. That evening I found out that my bid was accepted (even though the other person's bid was apparently higher) and now I am on my way to having a place to live!

I'm shooting for a move in date of July 8th, but I was already told not to get my hopes up. Things move slowly here, like I said before.

Side "garden" (yard) with storage sheds, sun deck, and brick bbq.

Kitchen with shattered window.

In other news, I am starting to meet more people and am really enjoying my job. This past weekend I went on a "house crawl." Basically, it's a pub crawl except to people's homes instead of pubs. I joined about halfway through the evening, but I soon caught up. It was a lot of fun, but the night ended badly for my phone. As I was walking home from the last house at around 1:30am, I got a strong urge to listen to Neil Young (I have a tendency to listen to American folk music a lot more regularly when I am in a foreign place). To quench my urge, I grabbed my 3 week old iPhone from my pocket, but the little guy was slippery like a fishy. It jumped out of my hands and onto the sidewalk. Everyone knows the saying, "liquor then beer, you're in the clear; beer then liquor, never been sicker." A less known piece of wisdom is, "beer, then shots, then a mixed drink, then more beer, then some wine, followed by eating all of the taco toppings after the shells ran out, then an urge to listen to Neil Young while walking home in the dark kills your iPhone." It's catchy, I know. Ironically, as Kate pointed out, Apple just announced their new iPhone yesterday and the lowering of their prices on their old models. It is going to cost me more to fix my iPhone in the UK than it would cost me to buy a brand new one in the US. Bullocks.

Something positive that came out of the house crawl was the fact that I know where half a dozen people live now. On Sunday I ate dinner with some friends and came to find that I had a flat tire afterwards. No worries, I had a full sized spare in the trunk. As my luck would have it, that was flat too. I looked up the nearest service station on my GPS, picked up the tire, and started walking. An hour later I was still walking. What I didn't know before I started is that there are no service stations in Harrogate. It was amazing. I went to the three nearest places listed in my GPS and they had all recently been converted into something else. Just as I was considering my next move, I noticed that I was standing two houses down from one of the places I visited during the house crawl! I knocked on the door and borrowed a bicycle pump and got a ride to my car. After a quick tire change, I was off and running.

That is the major news from the weekend. I have Friday off this week, so I am taking the train down to London for a weekend there. I've never been there before and I am looking forward to it. I am going to the play Billy Elliot on Friday night. I think that is one of my favorite movies of all time, so I'm guessing the play should be pretty entertaining as well. I have nothing else planned at this point, so I will have to tear into my Lonely Planet on the train.

York Minster (it doesn't have anything to do with this post, but I walked past it the other week when I was out)