A weekend in London

For those of you who have never been to London, here’s a quick wrap up of our trip last weekend: We’re bloody broke....but we had a good time anyway.

My friend and St. Mary’s county native who we visited there, Adam, told us the exchange rate was about 2:1. What does this mean? Well, for a stingy chap like me, it means my heart stopped for a second when the waitress at our first pub stop said the total for three drinks was “13 pounds 20, love.”

For those bad at math, that’s about $26. For three drinks. Three.

Anyway, my miserly ways aside, London was good. Kate had not been there before, but I had– albeit for a very short trip. Either way, we were both ready and willing to see the town. Luckily, Adam was willing to help me maintain a good wallet weight by providing not only free boarding, but also a free walking tour. Cheers, Adam!We started by heading through the eternal foggy drizzle to Buckingham Palace – also known colloquially as “Buck House,” – which is the official residence of the royal family, including the Queen, King, Ace, Jack, and sometimes 9 (if you’re playing pinochle).

Then we took a walk through a very green park known as “Green Park,” and made our way through the city and into Chinatown, where we had a buffet lunch for some blood-pressure-raising price of $82 per person or something. To calm myself down, I’m going to post a happy Green Park picture here. After my blood pressure rose some more from the General Tso’s, we headed for Trafalgar Square – home of the famous 12-foot statue of a naked, pregnant, disabled woman.

Some, like the British Disability Rights Commission, call this sculpture of London native Allison Napper powerful and arresting. I think it’s kind of creepy. The artist, an apparent friend of Ms. Napper, said disabled people are underrepresented in art. Um, hello? What about all those statues from Greek times that are missing arms and legs. Duh.

We then left the creepy statue and the apparently permanent protest against war going on at Trafalgar Square and headed for London’s most classic structure, the “What, Not Butter!” container.

Actually, we noticed many oddly named foods, such as these “Traditional Pork Scratchings,” which actually say they come from “Authentic Black Country” and are stamped with the state postal symbol for Mississippi. Now, I’m now professor of decorum, but that didn’t strike me as being as sophisticated and cultured as I hoped the London-ites would be.

Speaking of food, here’s a snappy snap I couldn’t help but post. This one actually says this chunk of meat is “Savoury Duck or Faggot.” Now, this strikes me as weird for two reasons. One, Faggot? WTF? What else do I have to say about that? Two, they use the word “or.” Like they bought it from a forgetful butcher who couldn’t remember what he just chopped up. OK, enough about that.

On another random rant, I have to give you my two cents about British English. For those not in the know, the Brits use a lot of what we’d consider baby talk in their vernacular. The term “snappy snap” I took from a film developer’s sign. After eating “brekkie” they may turn on the “telly” or perhaps go outside and protect themselves from the rain by using their “brellies.” Seriously, Guvnah. That’s a little babyish.

Anyway, back to the tour.

Here’s the London Eye – and apparent “Eye sore” to many in the city as it is mammoth, ugly, and blocks the view of lots of things for lots of people. Currently, it’s the largest Ferris wheel in the world. And then there’s the view over the Thames and the Tower Bridge, which sits in front of the Tower of London (obscured by Kate’s head). The Tower, which we didn’t visit as it’s $9,442,070.20 to get in, is the home of the Crown Jewels, some scary ghost stories, and a bunch of ravens who, if they ever leave, will cause the Tower to crumble and a great disaster to befall England. Let’s hope the bird flu doesn’t head that way.Then, there was Harrod’s for – oddly enough – a little taste of home: some hot, freshly made Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

Here’s Adam and I in front of Westminster Abbey doing the obviously cool thing to do: Signing in our gang language “W” and “A” (for Westminster Abbey, of course).

And then, there’s St. Paul’s, a church only rivaled in size and presence by St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Unfortunately for St. Paul’s, I was just recently impressed in person by the latter.

And I’ll leave you with one final snappy snap of Adam and Kate riding the tube. In this picture, Kate is being her usual organized self and counting how many stops it will be until we disembark and Adam is expectantly nodding to ask if we’ve had a good tour. Thanks, Adam. We certainly did.

(And for you nosy Parkers out there, we made sure to remunerate Adam with five pounds of cheese. Five pounds as in money, that is, because five actual pounds of cheese would probably kill Adam and thereby depriving us of free future lodging.)

Batumi, Georgia - birthplace of bad wine

As I mentioned in the last blog, our Rome trip was cut short by a fortunate opportunity for me to go on a work trip to the Republic of Georgia (now simply and confusingly known as “Georgia”). The country, whose name is thought to derived from the Greek word Georgios (farmer), is located in the south Caucasus and has a climate that ranges from sub-tropical on the Black Sea coast to downright tundra in the Caucasus mountains. It’s small (about the size of South Carolina), poor (the main economic activity is agriculture), and still waking up culturally from more than 40 years of oppressive Soviet rule. I was staying in the port town of Batumi for a week, which is a small city (about 120,000) on the coast that had views of both water and mountains. The weather was great (upper 50s), the food was healthy and local, and the prices couldn’t have been better. (I got a haircut there for about $3.00). What I found most interesting was the language. Apparently not related to Indo-European languages, Georgian is weird to listen to. It’s also weird to see, as the alphabet they use there is completely unrelated to any other alphabets of the world.

Other basics:

The coal that they burned at night to keep warm not only created a thick haze that clouded one’s vision, but it also reeked to high heaven – so much so that when I blew my nose at night it was black.

Georgia is the birthplace of wine, dating back to 5,000 B.C. The local wine is characterized as naturally semi-sweet and very competitive with French, Spanish and other Western European wines. I, of course, heard this before I went and decided to buy some wine. Unfortunately, ancient tradition doesn’t always equal appealing flavor.
Parts of Georgia are apparently very touristy at times because it is considered both an excellent ski resort and an excellent sea resort. Would I go all the way to ski there? No. Would I like to bathe in the Black Sea or put my towel down on the bumpy rocks they call a shore? No.

The country is also the home of Uncle Joe Stalin.

Roman Holiday

It was early Sunday morning and Kate and I were waiting in line to board our Ryanair flight back to Frankfurt. Through the wall-to-wall windows on three sides of the poorly constructed box they called a terminal, I could see the dawn breaking over the tarmac on Rome’s Ciampino airport, casting vivid shimmers of yellows and reds through the sky that reflected on the glassy black asphalt.

I was disappointed to be leaving Rome. This trip had been my attempt at a romantic birthday holiday for Kate – albeit one that she knew about WELL in advance. And also albeit one that consisted of us spending the night in a four-bed hostel room with two unknown German tourists who, while seemingly nice, did nothing to cater to my poorly constructed romantic ambitions. But, despite all those preparations, our trip was cut short because I received an offer from work to attend a conference in the Black Sea port town of Batumi, Georgia, that would have me leaving Sunday (one day before our previously "scheduled" departure). Kate obliged, of course, but said that this one-day truncation to our trip did not add any romantic brownie points.

More importantly, I was disappointed because this was the first time I saw the sun in two days. Although the forecast only called for a chance of showers on the first day, we were met with nonstop Noah’s Ark type rain here the whole time. Typical, I hear, for the off-season.
Reflecting back on our trip, however, I’d classify the trip as a success despite the rain. (Kate didn’t like the word “despite” because she said it wrongly implies not minding the rain. She would use the words “except for.”)

Anyway, we both agreed: Rome was not a washout.

After landing in Rome’s “other” airport early Friday morning, we started off the drizzling day with a complicated but cheap connection from the airport to the main train station, which was conveniently only a five-minute walk to our hostel. By five-minute walk, however, I mean five minutes of looking at the map, 5 minutes of aimless pointing, 20 minutes in a yummy panini café pitstop where I got my first taste of Roman espresso (BUZZ!), 20 minutes in an impressively cavernous bath-cum-church pitstop that Kate’s friend Liz recommended, and then five minutes of walking until we arrived and dropped off our bags. Here's a pic of me eating the panini.The following 36 hours (apart from about 8 of sleeping, reading, and bathing) were the most walk-intensive hours a man could endure without needing serious medical attention. (Thankfully, the first espresso was followed by many more tasty and powerful brother and sister espressos throughout the trip, which sustained my high and kept me blissfully unaware of anything that could be classified as pain).

On the first day, we followed the marked map that Liz had given us and found the Roman Forum (think ruins in a grassy lawn), the Coliseum, Palatine Hill, the Sacra Argentina, the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, and, of course, the inside of several noteworthy cafés.
We started at the Coliseum, where we splurged for a guided tour led by a sexist Roman named Roberto, who insisted on high-fives from appeasing men in the crowd after every women-suck joke. (The men ambivalently appeased because they wanted to be cool, but knew full well the consequences of making such a statement in front of their wives).

I was amazed the Coliseum was still in pretty good condition, considering it is now 1,924 years old. We learned many interesting and non-sexists facts, including how part of it was destroyed (earthquake), who fought in it (slaves mostly, but some professionals as well), and that they had pulley-system elevators (to raise the lions and tigers from their cages underneath the arena so they could eat the slaves). I also learned that the word Arena was Latin for sand, which was what the ground consisted of (because it soaked up blood the best), and therefore was what the locals called the place. Here's a pic of us inside the massive structure.
As for the sexist facts, the best one in my opinion was how the women had the worst seats (HIGH-FIVE!) weren’t allowed to sit down (HIGH-FIVE!) and didn’t have bathrooms (HIGH-FIVE!), so had to make #2 in doggie bags and pitch them over the side (HIGH-FIVE!).

After Roberto’s illuminating discussion, we took a tour led by a fast-talking New Jersey-ite named Jennifer who gave us WAY too many facts about Palatine Hill, which was the original settlement of Rome, founded by Romulus (hence, who Rome was named after) who was raised by a mother wolf (or perhaps a prostitute, as it's the same word in Latin), and who killed his brother Remus in the worst case of sibling rivalry since Emilio Estevez and Charlie Sheen starred in that awful early 90’s movie together where they were garbage men who were so smitten with a dame that they told impressive-sounding but unfounded lies to top one another until it unfolded in a comical wild-goose-hunt ending where nobody gets the girl.

OK, back to reality. Here's me cold on Palatine Hill.

Here I learned that the word Palace comes from a structure that was built on Palatine Hill and that Kate is really impressed by scattered stones.
The Sacra Argentina is just another green area on the map with hardly any write up in any of the travel guides. But believe you me, if ever there was a more impressive collection of feral cats who lived undisturbed in a major metropolis, I hadn’t heard of it.

The Pantheon was next (although, really, what act could top feral cats?). This building – not to be confused with the Parthenon, which has an extra R and is located somewhere in Greece – is older than the joke “older than dirt,” but just as much fun. First off, it's huge. It's got a 43-meter dome (the biggest until the 19th Century, I think), an "oculus” in the top (which is just a fancy word for "hole," but does shed some ethereal light throughout the whole place), and is free. It also has a bunch of old mosaic art and some impressive balance reminiscent of the Parthenon, I'm sure.

That was followed by an espresso and hot chocolate stop.

Then came the Spanish Steps, which was not the dance moves to the Tango I was disappointed to find out. There’s nothing really to say about these except for there’s a lot and they culminate in a great view of the city (if it weren’t rainy).

Following was dinner at a buffet across from our hostel. We had to circle this place on the map for any future visits as the food was mind-bogglingly good and the wine cheap.

On the second day we got up, had a croissant that was listed as having 433 calories (pre-butter), and took the metro under the city to a the smallest independent nation in the world. Officially called Stato della Città del Vaticano, you and I probably know it better as the Pope’s house.

After waiting in line for over 1.5 hours to get in, our first stop was the Vatican Museum, where we were eager to see the many frescoes by Perugino, Botticelli, and Michelangelo – especially, of course, the Sistine Chapel. To get to the Sistine Chapel, however, you have to go through the museum, which is about as big as the Vatican City is small. In fact, it has so many works that someone said if you looked at one piece of art per minute, you’d be there for forty years.
OK, if that’s true than we probably skipped over 99% of what’s there because we were only inside for about two hours. And those two hours were filled with Kate with a information-giving earpiece attached to her ear and me with a flashy camera attached to my hand, completely unaware of the importance of the works I was photographing.

It all sort of looked like this: imposingly grand, abuzz with people, and luxurious.
Then there was the Sistine Chapel. To be honest, this was really the only reason I went.... Frankly, I have no idea who Perugino or Botticelli are. All I cared about was that one picture with God reaching out to give Adam the finger. And when I saw it, I was kinda disappointed.

It was a crowded, dimly lit hall and all the pictures and frescoes were 68 feet above our head – too high to be seen with any perspicacity. Like the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, the Creation of Adam was smaller and hazier than expected, so it took about two seconds of neck craning to get my full appreciation from it.

Unfortunately, it was against the rules to snap any photos there, so you’ll have to live with one, taken somewhere in there.

After that, we walked out to the drizzle and waited in line to enter St. Peter’s Basilica. The largest church in Christendom, this place covers 5.7 acres and can hold 60,000 people. Before going in, I knew nothing about this place. Afterward, I can know proudly tell you that it has an old wooden chair – the Chair of St. Peter – and a neat sculpture called the Pietà, by Michelangelo that some guy attacked in the 1970s, yelling, “I am Jesus Christ.”

Satisfied with our striking increase of knowledge, we left and embarked on a twenty-minute walk to a place on our map that Liz had marked as “Yummy pizza!” and “Great gelato!” Although we weren’t in the mood for pizza, gelato sounded pretty irresistable at that point, so we walked through a charming little cobblestoney neighborhood and found our way to Liz’s recommended gelato haunt. Kate had double chocolate, I had double pistachio and we were both overwhelmed with how many calories could be compressed in a two euro cup.

But, since it was raining and cold, we decided we should splurge on some hot chocolate to warm us up. And, boy, was that ever worth it. Rich, thick, and dark, this hot chocolate was almost chewy, and we loved it.

It kept us warm all the way to the Trevi Fountain, which seemed to magically POP out of nowhere as we rounded the corner of a small alley. The fountain was gorgeous, probably the most memorable part of our Roman Holiday.

You might remember the fountain from the famous 1960 film La Dolce Vita. If not, how about Mary Kate and Ashley’s “When in Rome”? (Yeah, I thought that’d do it).

What you’re supposed to do there, as you can see in our pictures, is throw some coins with your right hand over your left shoulder to guarantee yourself a trip back to the Eternal City. Through this, the city of Rome acquires about 3,000 euros each day. Pretty nice, huh? It was then getting toward dinner time, so we decided to head back to the buffet across from our hostel – again (met with much support from me). But before we did, we managed to stumble upon the Boca della Verita or the Mouth of Truth, which is a huge marble head that, legend has it, bites off the hands of liars. Daredevils, both Kate and I stuck our hands in, with no ill effects.
Afterward was the Santa Maria della Vittoria, a church that houses the Ecstasy of St Theresa, an apparently famous Bernini sculpture in which St. Teresa shows an orgasmic grin as she pulls a spear out of the body of a foe. It was nice, but I was hungry.

After dinner that night, we circled some more places on the map that we enjoyed and decided to send it on its third journey of Rome, this time with Kate’s brother Edward, who will use it on his trip with his girlfriend in March. Good luck finding the buffet, Edward! Here's the address.

Pecos's Birthday

So, we owe you a post or two. OK, two posts for sure: one about my birthday trip to Rome last weekend and one about Justin's business trip to Georgia (pronounced with a Russian accent, not a Southern accent), but more important things must be shared.

Today (for you guys as it's past midnight for us) marks Pecos's fourth birthday. On February 17, 2003, our little pooch was born. Also, his name has officially been changed from Pecos G. (for Gargurevich) Ward to Pecos G. (for Gray-Beard) Ward. He is truly graying prematurely. It runs on his mom's (my) side of the family.

Last year, Pecos celebrated his birthday with a wild party complete with presents, wine, dinner, and a lady friend (let us know if you want us to email documentation of the event), but this year, Pecos opted for a more low key birthday.

Pecos's birthday began with a late morning in bed, a breakfast of eggs and dog food, a long nap on the couch, a hike in the woods, a bath, a dinner of dog food and bacon sauce, and a long nap in the bed. It was pretty much a perfect Pecos-day. We were happy to make the day all about his wants (ok, maybe the bath wasn't something he wanted, but it was sorely needed) and can't wait to celebrate many more birthdays with him.

And for your pleasure, here's a picture of Pecos climbing a ladder. He was great going up, but needed some help coming down.