Nice if you like chocolate, watches, diplomacy and all that.
I won't be posting any pictures though. I have a new camera and haven't yet learned to monitor the battery level, meaning I couldn't take daytime pictures of the beautiful lake or old town because I killed the battery trying to take a long exposure night shot of a swan in the lake. Which in hindsight had no chance of being a good picture.
End of October already. Oi.
1. In Paris, on the subway: a gentleman steps onto the train wearing a beret and scarf, and sporting a thin mustache. He is obviously the Frenchiest French guy ever. And then he speaks. In English. With a strong southern accent. WHAT?! This isn't something I can understand.
Consider the opposite: an overweight guy wearing a trucker hat drinking Busch Light in a truckstop in Alabama. But he is somehow French and only speaks French. It doesn't happen.
2. What world is Todd Helton living in with that World Series goatee? There is simply no way of explaining that away.
3. The worst city in the world to have a head cold in? My vote is Paris on a cold, rainy day. At least until they institute the smoking ban.
As you know, my parents were in town. And then we were collectively out of town on a pretty grueling road trip through Italy. And then they continued on to Belgium and Holland before returning to London, while I came home and recovered from walking 10 miles or so per day.
They're good fun, those two. There is nothing pretentious about them, which is something I've always admired. But that may lead to the occasional bad joke and some silliness that aggravate the French. Thankfully we were in Italy.
Good old dad. He lost a bet in Cinque Terra and had to dress in drag for one day. He looked good in a skirt.
For being a teetotaller, he sure does look drunk in a lot of pictures.
Bless them. I miss 'em already.
P.S. I'm out of town from tomorrow through Monday night, on business in Paris and Geneva. I added some pictures to my London, aye? and I walked 500 miles posts to keep you occupied during my absence.
Tomorrow I'm going to Rotterdam for the day, which is just as cool as it sounds.
So no post tomorrow but back Wednesday when I'll try to post some pics.
With my parents in town, I finally saw some London sights. First time I've seen Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament (or at least made a point of noticing them).
I also rode the London Eye. It was a bit expensive at about $30 for a 30 minute ride (it's a humongous Ferris wheel that goes really slow -- you just go around once). Excellent views and yesterday was a nice sunny fall day so the timing was good.
The stats on the London Eye are that on busy weekend days 12 - 15,000 people ride. That's cash flow homie.
Last night I FINALLY saw a good representation of Broken Social Scene in concert. To be fair, it was a kind of convaluted version of the band -- it was a portion of the band playing Broken Social Scene songs in addition to most of the new album by one of the band's founding members, Kevin Drew. (For a better history of BSS -- read this.)
So the name of the show was Broken Social Scene Presents: The Spirit If... by Kevin Drew.
And that new album is phenomenal. And they did play a decent amount of classic BSS stuff. Cause = Time was a highlight, Lover's Spit was a highlight, Emily Haines coming out for 7/4 Shoreline was a highlight. I was just happy to be there.
Broken Social Scene is the music best representative of my 20s. I'd say Dave Matthews Band was the band of my 10s, if we're putting things into decades.
If we were to split it into 5-year increments, I'd say:
10-15: Boyz II Men
15-20: Dave Matthews Band
20-25: Ryan Adams
25-30: Broken Social Scene
If I had to guess which bands will define my next stages, I'd guess:
30-35: Wilco
35-40: Harry Connick Jr.
40-45: Backstreet Men
45-50: Men II Old Men
I've always had the bad habit of leaving things until the last minute -- when meeting up with people, leaving for work, arriving at the airport, etc.
This adds minutes of free time to my life, but also adds back an equivalent amount of stress.
Here are two recent Hall of Fame type instances.
1. Train to Dorset leaves at 11:20am. I leave my flat at 10:45, with no ticket and no real idea how best to get to the train station, which is on the opposite side of London. I arrive in the train station at 11:18am, buy a ticket on the train, and sit down as the train begins to move. I'm seated across from my colleague Oliver and friend Maurice. Oliver has just finished betting Maurice that I will appear and sit down just as the train is departing.
2. Rental car due at Rome's Ciampino airport at 1pm. We depart Siena for Rome on a quarter tank of gas at 10am. For the first portion of the trip, I decide to navigate us on the scenic route through Tuscany. This is a beautiful drive, but at 11am we're still at least 2 hours away from the airport, to which I have only basic directions. At 12:50 we're 10 minutes from the airport, and the gas light has been on for 20 minutes (thankfully you can return the car with the tank empty). We pull into the airport at 2 minutes till 1pm, park the car, find the Avis counter and return the paperwork. "Is the tank full or empty?" "Empty." "How empty?" "Empty."
It's a gift.
Or is it a curse?
So I'm back from a little trek through Italy with the 'rents. Man do they love gelati. And walking. I think it's some sort of evil self-imposed punishment/reward regime.
I ate gelato everyday and we averaged somewhere around 8 miles per day walking -- I'll get the actuals all added up and report them here later. Which is possible because my mom has a pedometer. So in addition to actual distance traveled, I'll also be able to tell you how many steps we took and how many of those were 'aerobic' steps.
Our itinerary was:
Saturday - Genoa
Sunday - Cinque Terra; we set-up camp in Vernazza
Monday - Florence
Tuesday - Siena
Wednesday - Rome
The Cinque Terra was definitely a highlight. Do a Google image search (or just look at the pictures below) and you'll see why. I also really liked Siena. I liked Florence more than last time (in the year 2000!) and Rome less.
Most days our routine went something like this:
early - Mom & Dad wake up, take showers and get ready, eat breakfast in the hotel.
right before leaving - I wake up.
mid-morning - we drive to the new destination. Dad is unimpressed with my navigation skills, responding with passive-aggressive comments about probable faster routes and my inability to deliver perfect information when he needs it, and complete silence when he does not. Mom sits in the back seat and smiles lovingly.
early afternoon - arrival in the next town; check-in to the hotel if one was reserved or finding one if no reservation was made. In the Cinque Terra we stayed in some kind of guestroom owned by a guy named Francesco. Lunch.
afternoon - we would walk a lot.
late afternoon - Gelati (the plural of Gelato).
early evening - back to the hotel for Dad to change into jeans, a fresh embroidered logo polo, and an embroidered logo jacket; quick nap for me.
evening - dinner, coffee, desert.
still pretty early evening - Mom and Dad crash for the night. I wander around the city looking for trouble.
Hazelnut Gelato is pretty great.
So now I'm back and my folks are walking around Belgium and Holland for a few days without me. They get back on Sunday afternoon and we'll probably walk some more, and then eat some more.
So I've always pictured embassies like the one in that Val Kilmer movie (someone remember the name for me). Elisabeth Shue is running towards the gates, passport open, and the gates open for her and shut quickly behind. And then inside there are comfortable couches and tea with biscuits.
But this morning I went to get extra pages added to my passport and was brought to the cold reality that embassies are usually ugly buildings with bored, underpaid workers. Just an international version of the DMV.
But after waiting in line outside, sitting on the benches inside (while reading a hilarious America propoganda magazine called "The American"), my extra pages were added. So they got the job done.
With that said, the 'rents have arrived. Off to Italia for bad-pizza-that-they-think-is-good-pizza and a tour from Genoa to Rome. So the blog will be disturbingly quiet from now til next Thursday. Be warned. Maybe start your own blog (?) which would take about 10 seconds.
Salzburg. It's all about Mozart and The Sound of Music. The hills are really alive there. With the. Sound. Of Music.
Speaking of The Sound of Music -- the hostel I stayed in showed it every night at 8pm. And I was kind of embarrassed to know most of the words... to most of the songs.
Beautiful town though. It's a good town for old people to visit.
Munich on the other hand, is all about the bier and the weissbier. It's a good town for annoying Australians and Samoans to visit.
Last week I lost my woolie. It's the second woolie I've lost since moving to London. And then in Salzburg I lost my scarf.
Here's the complete list of things I've lost recently:
1. My gray woolie. It fell out of my pocket somewhere. It was a bad idea to put it in my back pocket.
2. My gray and blue striped scarf. Left it in this Argentine girlscout's backpack.
3. My brown woolie. Left it on a bus. It was a bad idea to fall asleep on the bus.
4. Some money. From when I got scammed on that Arsenal season ticket. It was a bad idea to wire money to Singapore.
5. My flip-flops when I was in Portugal. I left them on the beach and then it got windy and the sand covered them up and I couldn't find them.
6. Several pairs of sunglasses and gloves.
7. My entire Rickey Henderson baseball card collection. For a bunch of Shawn Kemp basketball cards. Bad trade.
Here are things that I thought I lost but really just misplaced:
1. This really soft t-shirt with a lion-shaped silhouette. I saw a picture of myself wearing it, which reminded me that I once wore it often. But then I looked for it and couldn't find it. So then I accused my ex-girlfriend of stealing it (she was in the picture), but she denied any wrongdoing. She was vindicated when I found it at the back of my closet. It's still really soft.
Here are things that I haven't realized I've lost yet:
1.
Tomorrow: pictures from Salzburg! and Munich!
Later this week: how I just found out that one of my best friends was hit by a car (he's okay) and why that means we should all tell the people that we love that we love them more often.
Here's how to make your own Oktoberfestbier:
Take one American county fair. Add several million people in the following percentages:
70% Bavarian (with 50% in traditional lederhosen)
10% other non-descript Germans
8% overzealous and most often obnoxious Australians, Italian, English, Samoans and American fratboys.
6% Asians
4% Dutch guys who like the girls but prefer Dutch beer
2% really out of place and confused sober people
In place of livestock in the barns, insert people as an exact substitution, with the same rations of food and drink.
Accompany these masses with traditional German folk songs as well as pop hits from the 1980s and '90s, including "Angels" by Robbie Williams and "Living on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi.
Keep the gaudy ferris wheels, carnie games and roller coasters. Add quite a bit of quality and variety to the food booths, including the roasting of oxen and endless amounts of sausages and sausage-inspired cuisine.
Employ no-nonsense personnel in all service and security positions.
Open gates at 7am, livestock barns (called tents) at 9am; close at 11pm.
Repeat for 16 days.
I'm leaving tomorrow for Munich by way of Salzburg and will be there for the closing weekend.
- There are 14 main tents, each with a unique beer/wine offering. Most have traditional brass bands playing throughout the day and night. And some of them have yodelers.
- 12,000 people work there. 1,600 of them are those are barmaids that can carry 12 steins at a time as well as beat me at arm wrestling.
- There is seating for 100,000 people.
- In 2006, 6.1 million mugs of beer were sold.
- You can also eat food there. Last year 102 roasted oxen were consumed, along with 219,443 pairs (?) of sausage and 459,279 chickens.
I'm going to meet up with my good friend Sebastian who I haven't seen for 4 years or so. He's German, from Germany. The real thing.
It was crazy. I was the only one not wearing skinny jeans, ironic sunglasses, designer hi-tops and a minimalist scarf. But I can throw down Red Bull with the best of them (and then lay in bed shaking 5 hours later in total regret).
Pretty good time though. I actually enjoyed it thoroughly.
