Catching Ducks

My "favorite" is when drivers slam on their brakes, turn, and then flash their turn signal once or twice after the turn is completed. That's awesome.

Labels: Rick Mercer, travel

From this essay by Linda Holmes:


We have a certain cultural mistrust of solitude, I think. It is for weirdos and lost souls, spinsters and misfits. But in truth, I can't tell you what a luxury I think it is to be entitled to it. Most of the time, I want good company, like most people do. But the experience of earned, voluntary aloneness is, among other things, instructive. I don't think you can really understand how accustomed you are to being scheduled and operating off an internal to-do list at almost all times until you think to yourself, "My goal will be to get to Providence by 4," and then you think, "Why is there a goal?"

And then it begins to make you internally rebellious: What if I drove with no goal? What if I had nowhere to be all day until it was time to sleep and I discussed with no one where to stop and take a picture, where to have lunch, what shop to go in, or which way to turn on the trail? What would I do if I could do anything — in this micro-environment, in this moment, at the point of this particular pause, what is my wish?

Labels: Linda Holmes, travel

From his twitter account, Chris Kluwe tweets about his adventures at the Pittsburgh airport:


I don't know what's happening at Pittsburgh International airport this morning, but there are security lines literally out the door.

This check in area is a clusterfuck of colossal proportions. So glad we keep letting shitty airlines merge together into even shittier ones.

Oh sweet, the airline computer system is down and TSA isn't letting them check people in manually. There's no chance I'm getting home.

Sigh. There's a group of Pittbros in front of me. They're currently talking about their collars and how much dip they packed.

Oooh, now they're talking about how their other friend sent them snapchat pictures of his most recent sexual conquest. And bathroom selfies!

This is better than early morning cartoons. I've never seen an actual caricature in the flesh before.

"I packed all these cutoffs, and was like, whoa."
"Yeah man, got these dope tanks. Dope. Tanks."

I'm trying to think of some way to snap a picture that doesn't involve duckface or looking creepy, but no ideas as of yet.

Might tell them I'm a talent caster for a reality TV show. That should probably work.

One of them is named Chad. Because of course he is.

Chad apparently has a neon green manpurse/backpack/something. I can only imagine it's holding all the dope tanks.

Asked the TSA people if I could go through the TSA Pre line with a full patdown, since my flight is literally leaving in 20 minutes. Nope!

THANKS FOR KEEPING ME SAFE ON THE FLIGHT I WON'T MAKE, TSA. CHAD SAYS THANKS, TOO.

Oh lord. Chad's friend is named Dylin. Because of course Chad's friend is named Dylin.

Well, I have three minutes to make it to D terminal. D terminal won't be far, right?

Also, for those wondering, Dylin is indeed spelled that way. He had a name tag.

Welp, I knew there was a reason I've been staying in shape. Just sprinted the length of Pittsburgh International in sandals.

MADE IT AS THEY WERE CLOSING THE DOORS. SUCK ON THAT, CHAD AND DYLIN.

Now I'm that sweating guy who's breathing heavily in the plane. Hi seatmate! Let's be friends!

Pretty sure half the people who were supposed to be on this flight are stuck in TSA hell. Lot of empty seats.

And my running was in vain. They're keeping us here waiting for people. With any luck, this means I'll miss my connecting flight!

Labels: travel

On my way home from work today I heard a traffic report on the radio. I'm not sure what channel it was on (Star 101.5, maybe?), but it made me laugh:


"I'm happy to report no blocking incidents. Except of the Skagit River Bridge being in the water, of course."

Labels: travel

The Hairpin is a pop-culture-y website, and one of their regular features is "A [length of time] alone in [a country]" where they interview people who have traveled interesting places by themselves. (For instance, here's someone who spent ten days in Shanghai.)

This quote is from A Week Alone in Lithuania and Poland:


What was the hardest you laughed?

On my second day in Krakow, I decided to go see the Polish National Gallery, wondering how Poland represented itself, officially. There was a huge and boring exhibit on the evolution of Polish military uniforms over the last 500 years (spoiler alert: gold braid! lots of felt!), and a more interesting one on 20th Century Polish art, and in a little hallway between the two were three little glass display cases and a little bit of wall text: about the Jews in Poland! (Spoiler alert: there used to be some.) The cases were full of beautiful silver ritual objects — menorahs etc. — all labelled "Purchased from synagogue X between 1937 and 1939." Which — I mean it was just this obvious obscuring of history, this cognitive dissonance as what I knew and what I saw totally didn't line up. I knew there was no way I could really convey that, but I noticed that one of the books (in Hebrew, so right to left) was upside down, and tried to convey it to a museum employee. "No English, no English!" he shouted, flapping his hands in the air and walking briskly away. When he was gone, I just completely broke down laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing, at my inability to communicate or reconcile. Like, how is this true! There is nothing I can do here! I give up! It felt very much like being in a Kafka story.

Labels: travel

Some cool pictures from the last years of the Soviet Union. I especially liked the first picture -- I went to that McDonald's, when it was still the USSR. The wait was "only" forty-five minutes. If I recall correctly, I had a Big Mac.

Labels: history, travel

Good: My DVR's at 91%.

Bad: To record the newer stuff, it deleted some older stuff.


Oh well.

Labels: travel, TV

It's not a vacation to Hawaii without a sunburn.

Right?

Labels: travel

Hawaii is (currently) three hours ahead of Washington. The Baby (or "Squirmy Wormy", as I like to call her) gets up about two hours before I usually do, and goes to bed early enough that I get to bed about two and half hours earlier than I usually do.

I didn't even notice the time difference. Yay for no jet lag!!!

Labels: friends, travel

First off, thanks Mom and Dad, for the awesome Christmas present! :)


22 March 07

Left Seattle. Dad dropped me off at the airport nice and early. Thanks again, Dad!


23 March 07

Arrived London. Mom met me at the airport. We picked up the rental car and drove to Lewes (pronounced "lewis"). Arrived too late to see Lewes Castle. I went to bed early instead. Mom watched TV. Apparently I was tired enough that I slept through it!


24 March 07

We drove to Pevensey Castle. I seem to have found my calling as a navigator -- Mom says I'm the best she's ever had (or was it second best? Either way, I was good.)

Pevensey is a proper castle: It has a moat!



It as a dungeon, too. (These are the stairs to it.) The dungeon was, as one would expect, dark and dank.



This is the interior of the castle. Those round things aren't cannonballs, they're catapult fodder from ye olden days. These balls (and a bunch of others) were dredged out of the moat. They were big. (Big = bigger than my head.)



Fun Fact #1: Pevensey Castle used to be right on the coast. Now the sea is about a mile away.

Fun Fact #2: It was used by the military as recently as World War II.

After Pevensey Castle (and before Michael Ball concert #1) we did a little shopping. I bought candy bars and a magazine with Hugh Laurie on the cover.

Question: Why does the U.K. have seven (eight if you count "Radio Times") TV magazines when they only have five (six?) channels??

Sorry, no pictures from the concert. Cameras are forbidden! Good concert, though.


25 March 07

Left Lewes. Went to Fishbourne Palace. This place was totally awesome! Mom and I accidentally spent three hours there!

It was discovered in 1960. Some workmen dug up a bit of it. At first they thought it was just another Roman settlement. Eventually they realized that it was actually a huge Roman palace! The only other sites that compare to it are in Italy.

There are some beautiful tile floors. Some are almost completely intact. This was from a dining room:



Most of the palace is still underground, buried underneath a road and a row of homes.

After Fishbourne Palace, we went to Portsmouth and Michael Ball concert #2. Front row seats this time -- eek!


26 March 07

Left Portsmouth. Stopped at Portchester Castle. Really neat. There was this large lawn surrounded by the outer wall. The lawn area seemed to function as a public park. (The same was true at Pevensey Castle.) There was a woman throwing a ball into the moat around the castle, and her dog would jump in and fetch it! (I have a great video of this.)



The tourist stuff was past the moat, in the actual castle bit. The tallest building (the keep? I think? I should really know this...) was still intact, so we could go up to the top. We had a great view of the water, Portsmouth, the countryside, and a bird's-eye view of the rest of the castle. Neat!




After Portchester Castle we went to Glastonbury. Unfortunately, it was a bust. We got there later than we'd hoped, it was hard to find the stuff we wanted to see, it was even harder to find parking, and the staff at Glastonbury Abbey was grumpy. Goodbye Glastonbury, and good riddance.

We drove on the Bath and went to bed.


27 March 07

Walked into downtown Bath.

We went to the Roman Baths first. The Romans were big fans of baths (both in the sense of washing and in the sense of the places themselves). The baths in Bath were a big deal because they were heated by a natural hot spring. This made them a holy place, not just a place to clean and socialize. (By the way, the Celts had set up a shrine -- to the goddess Sulis -- there before the Romans showed up. That didn't bother the Romans at all. They just figured out who the Roman equivalent of Sulis was -- Minerva -- and worshipped Sulis-Minerva. Quite accommodating, really. On a side note, the Romans generally get a bad rap for their treatment of the early Christians. And, okay, Christians vs. lions, etc. But the Romans got along fine with other polytheist cultures. It was the Jews and Christians and their "one god" idea that caused the problems. Not that that justifies slaughter. I'm just saying that the Romans are sometimes portrayed as intolerant, and I don't think they were. I think they just couldn't wrap their heads around the monotheism thing. Anyway.....)

Here's the famous Roman baths of Bath:



I don't know if you can see it in the small picture (click on it and you should be able to find a larger picture), but the actual Roman stuff only goes up a few feet above the pool. After that it's a Victorian expansion. The Romans put a roof over the pool. I'm not sure why the Victorians didn't follow suit.

The Romans baths are now below street level.

Like I said earlier, this was a holy place. The Romans built a temple. The temple's gone, but they've found bits and pieces. This was the centerpiece of the front decoration of the temple (They think it's a Gorgon's head.):




Right next door to the Baths is the Bath Abbey. And when I say right next door, I mean right next door. This is Bath Abbey, as seen from the balcony above the pool:



Here's the inside:



I find myself staring at the ceiling in these sorts of places. It's sort of hypnotic.

There were lots of people buried (interred?) in the Abbey itself. Or were they memorials? I never quite figured it out. At any rate, some of them were elaborate, with beautiful sculptures.




Our last stop in Bath was the Costume Museum. Basically, it was a museum for clothes. I loved it! Unfortunately, they're doing renovations, and the oldest stuff was closed off. But what we did see was super-cool. Look! Pretty clothes!!




Walked back to the hotel. I loved this hotel, by the way. Two reasons:

1) They had several options for breakfast (not that I really liked any of them, but it was nice to have a choice!) and all-you-can-eat grapefruit and all-you-can-eat fruit salad. Yum!

2) They had a computer (with an internet connection) in the lobby that was free for guests to use. I think my mom and I checked our email half a dozen times!


28 March 07

I drove. Mom screeched.

Went to Stourhead Gardens. This was some rich family's estate at one time. There's a big fancy house, but it was closed the day we were there. We walked around the gardens though. We did the two mile path. (The gardens are big and fancy, too!)

Near the house were gardens where they grew exotic plants. In the center of one was a dipping pool. The gardeners used to go down those steps to fill their watering cans.



Further away from the house it was more like a big park. There was a lake in the center. (Did I mention this was a big place?)



Along the lake edge there was the "grotto". As you walk along the path, you see a rock formation ahead. When you get closer, you can see there's actually a tunnel through the rocks. It leads to a large, round room that has a skylight, a window looking out over the lake, seats built into the wall, and a statue of a naiad opposite the window. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but hopefully you can get the idea:



(The girls were on a field trip. One is sitting in the window, the other is sitting in one of those built-in seats.)


After we left Stourhead we drove down the road a couple of miles to King Alfred's Tower. King Alfred's Tower is a "folly". That is, a tall structure built for no purpose. It just is.



It's triangular, and the inside is empty. There's a hole in the top.



Mom didn't want to climb it (she was pooped from the gardens) but I did. Up I went!



(The stairs were in one corner of the triangle.)

I actually made it to the top before my mom made it back to the main path (that's the one that cuts across the green.)



See that speck? That's my mom.

It was ten or eleven stories tall. The view wasn't great (too cloudy) but I'm glad I went up.


Drove on to Bournemouth for Michael Ball concert #3.


29 March 07

Went to Old Sarum. It's the site of the original town of Salisbury. Why did the town move, you ask? Politics, of course.

Originally the church was right next to the castle:



But a few years later the church leaders wanted to expand it. To raise money, they started a market down the hill from the castle. (They were having a bit of a tiff with the king.) Eventually they decided to build the new church near the new market. And voila! Salisbury was born:



Old Sarum's one of those places that was used by various people for thousands of years. Eventually someone installed a privy.



Imagine being the guy who had to climb in and clean it out!


After Old Sarum we went to Stonehenge. It's right next to the road! You've all seen lots of pictures, so I'll just post my favorite of the ones I took:




After Stonehenge we drove to Winchester to see the Winchester Cathedral.



When we walked in we could hear the organist playing. My mom asked if there was a recital going on, but he/she was just practicing. It was really neat! Having organ music playing in the background really gave the place a great atmosphere.



We were about to leave when the verger told us we should see the crypt. Unfortunately, it floods during the winter, so we could just see the very beginning, but it was still pretty cool. A modern artist made the sculpture you see. It was designed for when the crypt floods.




Spent the night at a Travel Lodge north of Winchester. Specifically, the northbound Travel Lodge. Not the southbound. The northbound.


30 March 07

Left the Travel Lodge and went to Farnham to see the Waverly Abbey. Unfortunately, we couldn't find it. We finally stopped and asked a postman for help. He'd never heard of it (!) but he knew where the Waverly Abbey House was. Luckily, Waverly Abbey was next door to the Waverly Abbey House.



The Abbey wasn't particularly well maintained. It was also the only free site we went to. I suspect those two things are related somehow...


Drove into London, dropped off the car, and I got on a plane for home!


My dad picked me up from the airport (Thanks, Dad!) and took me home where I slept. And then went to work. And then slept. And then went to work again. And then slept. And ....


I bought some cool stuff while I was in England (Books! A Stonehenge jigsaw puzzle! An antique picture! More books!) but I think this was my favorite purchase:



Yes, that's right, it's forty-eight Crunchie bars! Yum!!!!


Th-th-th-th-that's all, folks! Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. :)

Labels: travel

Apparently some of you are impatient to see my pictures. Unfortunately, you're going to have to wait a little longer.

Today was the first day I had a chance to work on my pictures. I transferred them to my computer (which took forever) and then went through them to pick out one picture from each place I went. Then I realized I could upload more than I realized, so I went through them again and picked out some more. Right now I'm uploading the ones I picked to my Flickr account (which is taking forever).

I have to go to work tomorrow, so I can't do the big post tonight. Sorry!

I'll try to post tomorrow after work.

Labels: travel

I'm on vacation in England and you're not!

Labels: travel

I wonder why people stand out in the middle of the street to see if the bus is coming. It's not going to make the bus come faster or help them board more quickly.

It's the bus equivalent of pushing the already-lit elevator button.

Labels: travel

I read an interesting article by Patrick Cooke in the June 2003 Smithsonian called "Coalition of the Differing".

According to the article, the U.S. and British troops fighting in World War II had a difficult time communicating with each other.

"The Americans complained that the British were secretive and unfriendly; the British insisted that the Americans were simpleminded and boastful. The allies argued about everything."

Margaret Mead was brought into study the problem.

"Mead discovered that the two cultures possessed fundamentally different world views. One simple way to demonstrate this was to ask an Englishman and an American a single question: What's your favorite color? American servicemen quickly came up with a color, but the British asked, 'Favorite color for what? A flower? A necktie?' Mead concluded that Americans, raised in a melting pot, learned to seek a simple common denominator. To the British, this came across as unsophisticated. Conversely, the class-conscious British insisted on complex categories, each with its own set of values. Americans interpreted this tendency to subdivide as furtiveness. (After all, a person who can't name a favorite color must be hiding something.)"

I thought it was interesting, and it also explained why people get so annoyed with me for not have a favorite color! I always wondered why that bothered people. And it really did! I finally started saying "green" just to make them feel better.

Labels: travel

Oops!

Labels: travel

Last week I went on my first vacation in over two years. I, along with my parents and some friends of theirs, went to Stehekin for a couple of days.


My parents and I drove over to Chelan, Washinton and then took the seaplane to Stehekin. My dad sat in the front seat with the pilot. They seemed to enjoy chatting about the plane and all its various gauges and doohickeys:




Here's Lake Chelan (or rather, part of it, since it's 50 miles long) from the air. It was kind of hazy that day -- maybe smoke from the forest fires?




If I recall correctly, the pilot told us that Lake Chelan has the cleanest water in the "lower 48". It certainly was very clear!




This is the Stehekin River a few miles before it feeds into Lake Chelan. My mom and I biked almost ten miles down the road along the river. We survived by taking many, many photo breaks!




One of our other stops was at Stehekin's "old school". It's a one-room schoolhouse that was used from 1920 to 1988! They have it open; we were allowed to walk around. Very cool!




Sunrise at Stehekin...




Stehekin was fun, but it was awfully hot and sunny. When we drove over the pass, the clouds were waiting for me to welcome me home...

Labels: travel

A couple of days ago I went to the beach. It was quite nice. Lacking in critters, but otherwise fun.

Growing up in the Seattle area, this is my idea of what a "beach" looks like:



I took a lot of pictures. Here's one of my favorites:




I took a few pictures just for Pedicularis. Here's one for you, Ped!

Labels: travel

If the bus you're trying to catch is early (causing you to miss it), the next bus will be late.

Labels: travel