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adventures

We took a food tour, and you have to guess where we are now

Here’s a short of lists of things that, if you have the opportunity to do, you should avoid.

If you have the opportunity to spend two nights in a row on an airplane, don’t. If you have the opportunity to be stuck on a plane when the ground power unit keeps failing, don’t. If you have the opportunity to do the above in the middle of the heat, you definitely should not.

If you have the opportunity to do that and meet the British Karen … actually do that, it is quite funny. And, look, British Karen isn’t going to get that plane flying any faster. You know that. I know that. I suspect she might know that. British Conspiracy Theory Karen might not know that. But what she can do is make the flight crew hand out extra snacks to mollify the human cargo. So thanks for that, I suppose, British Conspiracy Theory Karen. But, mostly, thanks for going quietly back to your seat when you scored the extra biscoff.

All of that is what we did last night. British Airways out of London and to points beyond. But to where? You’ve got just a little bit more time to guess, because the answer will become apparent below.

We got a bleary-eyed ride to our hotel. Honestly, I don’t remember much about it. I’ve not slept a lot on two successive airplanes and I didn’t sleep much the night before in anticipation of exhausting myself for two successive airplanes. On the way we heard a local newscast. People in the country illegally was the top story. The third story was the Senate primary in Texas. (We are in neither Texas, nor the U.S., obviously.)

We are staying just around the corner from the local stock exchange. There’s an American-style steakhouse out front. The hotel is gated. There is a private security guard. It all feels safe. Plenty of happy pedestrians are walking alongside a busy two-lane street. The hotel is nice. It is a sprawling affair. (We got turned around once, because who needs to pay attention to the desk attendant’s directions, anyway?) The hotel does not have amenities. It has experiences. The first experience was politely declining every bellhop’s offer to help. We’ve only just arrived, and we don’t yet have the local currency. We walked by two pools on the way to our room. They were small, and also cold, because winter is coming along. By this time I was the combination of tired and restless that put me close to tipping with every American dollar I had in my pocket. Just get me to a room, any room will do, so things stop spinning around me.

This evening we were picked up by a local driver who told us he spoke nine of the official languages. No idea if that was the truth, or, if so, why he’s a driver. He said there are 12 all told — they’ve recently added sign language to the list, but he hasn’t yet found a way to learn it yet, I thought about teaching him how to finger spell, but he was working, and I decided against telling him about the many dirty word tutorials on YouTube, because surely they are there. He said some of the languages were very similar. I assume this was easy for him to say, perhaps in several languages.

He delivered us to his colleague who took us on a walking tour of four nations cuisines. After the fact, I can say this: for years now I’ve had this idea of learning about food and eating the food and it is a bit like art, I am not exactly sure what I mean by that, but I’ll know it when I see it. This evening, we had food and culture and a lesson or two out of that and it is pretty close to what I’ve always been looking for. I suppose we’ll have to go on more food tours.

Tonight, we had Ghanaian, which was good. It was earth, rich, flavorful, and I will remember that as being a funny, spicy experience. (I am a spice wimp.) We tried Ethiopian, which was perhaps the best. The base of it is injera, or taita, a fermented, spongy flatbread made of teff flour. You eat it with your hands, tearing a bite of this off and using that to pick up the other parts of the food, family-style. I probably did it wrong, but the tour guide had to know that’s an occupational hazard.

I’m not a food photographer, but I would like you to know that everything on this tray was incredibly fresh and delicious. I don’t even like lentils, but those lentils were amazing. The other vegetables were freshly cut. The beef had incredible flavor. The spaghetti is there, I think, as an homage to the time that Italy tried to colonize Ethiopia and failed. The pickled beets I could do without, but it was all delicious.

We also had Nigerian, which was a bit similar to the Ghanaian, but not quite to that same level of satisfying, though I did enjoy our spicy stew sample. (This could have also just been the place we were.) It was also a bit on the spicy side. Lastly we had meat from a South African braai. The only problem is that we were full by then and we, thus, probably laid insult to the restaurant. South Africa is big on red meats. They barbecue in all seasons, and the braai has deep cultural routes in their cuisine. Also it is incredibly delicious. By the time we found this out, we’d eaten our way through three countries.

I’m going to want more of that. Fortunately, we are in South Africa for the next two weeks. I’m sure we’ll have the opportunity.

adventures / history / London / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off
26
May 26

A lovely little layover

We’ve landed, which is to be expected, and is the desired conclusion of a long plane ride. We flew overnight, which was the plan. I watched movies, all British things since we were on British Airways, which was the plan. I actually slept bit, which is surprising, since I’m bad at that, and airports are noisy and somewhat uncomfortable, even if you’re flying in the comfortable section, which we were, because that was a long overnight flight and we have tasted how the other half live.

We have come to a place which is not our destination. It has been our destination on previous trips. And it is pleasant enough. Also, they have the second most considerate sets of stairs anywhere — second only to escalators, which have the decency to move me around.

So we are in London. Which is the plan. Not the original plan. This is the secondary plan. Originally we were supposed to fly into Doha, but then the world happened and nothing was happening at the Doha airport, nothing good, anyway. So we re-booked, which made everyone happy. And we’re in London for the better part of a day.

The first idea was we could just stay in the airport, but we went a different route. We got our luggage, and then took it to a place in Heathrow where you can pay people to hold your things for you. We left our things with that business and I wondered how I would answer the old airport question about have my bags been in my control the entire time.

The entire length of time? No. For I am a mortal man with other hopes and dreams and wishes and preoccupations that have meant that, at some times, these things have not been under my careful and watchful eye. All of today? Also no, because there is a storefront downstairs where you can rent a locker for five pounds an hour or something, and who knows what they did to or with my stuff while I was in your beautiful, steamy city.

You don’t get asked those questions much anymore, though. Just as well. My desire to amaze myself with literal answers to rhetorical questions will get me in trouble one day.

So we dumped our bags at this place which has earned the approval of the airport and has, hopefully, carefully vetted their employees. We caught the train away from Heathrow and then caught the hop-on, hop-off bus. We did that after wandering around in the wrong direction two or three times, and then sitting for a while at a bus stop that wasn’t on the bus line. Also, it was quite hot in London. It was 35 C today, which is 95 degrees for American readers. That’s about 30 degrees higher than the seasonal average.

Don’t rush, indeed. Don’t rush, don’t sweat. Those stairs knew some stuff. We are, as they suggested, taking one step at a time.

Here’s the National Gallery, where the banner is enticing you to come in to see some of the works of Francisco de Zurbarán, a Spanish Baroque painter. He painted still-lifes and a lot of religious works.

The exhibition brings together works from major galleries across Europe and the US that span Zurbarán’s career from his first religious commissions to paintings made for private devotion. Stand in front of monumental works that can still move and inspire us today.

In the background is the beautiful St Martin-in-the-Fields. It first shows up in the written records in the 13th century, though they are celebrating the tricentennial of the current building this year. It’s been a proud centerpiece of Westminster for a long time, long before there was a Trafalgar Square, or before Nelson’s Column was installed.

Horatio Nelson’s column was built in the 1840s, made of Dartmoor granite. The statue of Nelson at the top was carved from Craigleith sandstone. It is 17 feet tall. There are four bronze relief panels, each 18 feet square, made from captured French guns. They depict the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, the Battle of the Nile, the Battle of Copenhagen and the death of Nelson at Trafalgar. This is the latter.

The sculptor of this one was John Carew, an Irishman who had a lot of work, but this is his most renowned. It depicts the death of Nelson. He was killed by a Frenchman aboard the Redoubtable as that ship and Nelson’s Victory tangled. Nelson’s unorthodox approach to the battle won the day, despite being outgunned and outnumbered. It ended French invasion plans, but otherwise did little to sway things in that particular war. He was, nevertheless, a hero. The column was refurbished in 2006, and found to be 169 feet and 3 inches tall from the bottom of the pedestal to the top of Nelson’s hat. That was a surprise. They seemed to think it should be some 14 feet taller.

I guess it never occurs to people to measure things.

One man who never forgot to measure was William Slim, who was a World War 2 hero. This statues was installed in the 1980s and it has the unnerving ability to look as if he has a different perspective from different angles.

He was wounded three times, twice in the Great War and again in World War II. He led the Fourteenth Army, the so-called “forgotten army” in the Burma campaign and rose to some considerable fame — beloved by his soldiers, respected by his peers, and duly honored by his country — which all became secondary after allegations of child sexual abuse while he was the governor-general of Australia (in the 1950s) emerged some years after his death.

The London Eye and the River Thames. The Eye is the world’s tallest cantilevered observation wheel, and the UK’s most popular paid tourist attraction. More than three million people a year take a ride. We did it several years ago.

And here’s the Queen Elizabeth Gate, or the Queen Mother’s Gate, guarding the entrance to Hyde Park. It was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1993 to celebrate the 90th birthday of The Queen Mother. The red lion and unicorn represent England and Scotland, respectively.

Still stands out, all these years later.

And so we rode around on the bus, until we decided we must leave the bus and march back to the train station, to ride the train back to Heathrow. We had to collect our bags, check back in, and then went to a lounge with showers. After a long hot day like this, that was the right plan. You get a private little fiberglass room, sink, toilet, shower, and a fold-down seat. It’s all cleaner than you might imagine, and it was necessary after a day in the heat, a night in a plane and so on.

Now we’re boarding another plane. But to where?

adventures / Monday — Comments Off
25
May 26

And we’re off

It occurred to me that I should reconfigure where things sit on my desk to reflect the summer mode.

Somewhere earlier this year a small batch of pens and a highlighter took up residence just to the left of this computer. (I am right-handed.) I say “this computer” because there is another sitting to the right of this one. (I am super-talented.) But I doubt I’ll be dabbling too much in the joy of manual, hand-held edits this summer. (That is not an unpleasant experience, and I catch much more that way, as readers of this site can attest.) I took the pens and put them back into their place in a small hand-turned bowl that someone got me. It was a tourist souvenir; it is beautiful. It still has the price on the bottom, $14, and it was probably not too much to the purchaser. Probably it was too much to me at the time, when I first noticed it, because it is unnecessary to spend money on me, but it seems like the best deal ever now. I don’t know what you’re supposed to put in that bowl, but I see it every day and some days I think about it like this and it’s priceless. It sits behind my elevated monitor. (Sometimes my desk has four screens. (I am super-distracted.) The bowl is within easy reach, but not immediate reach. Opposite that is a little ceramic tourist gift that someone else purchased me. A former colleague had asked me to water their office plants while they were gone, and I got this silly little Dutch shoe trinket. I don’t know what you’re supposed to put in that shoe, either, but it holds highlighters perfectly.

Moving those pens from my left completes a series of tasks I hadn’t realized was necessary. But they’re now tucked away. And the little notepads and things have all been tidily arranged. Previously there were also class notes sitting to the left of this computer. They got filed several days back. Then there were months of calendar pages there, but they were discarded last week. There were also some itemized To Do lists, but they’ve been re-positioned to their next staging area. In the back left corner of the desk, which may as well be on the other side of your neighbor’s house, sat some library books I’m going to read for the fall term. I moved them down to the front edge of the desk, next to my forearm as I type. I am not going to read them next, so, I’ll put some other books on top of them.

Hang on.

Two history books, right on top. I’ll be reading them soon. I bought both online. Perhaps one was a gift. I hate, hate, hate that I’m not clear on that. Please don’t spend your money on me, but if you do, know that I will see it as the honor of a lifetime that you have decided to give me this thing, because you thought it might be meaningful to me, because you thought it might make my day better. It will. It does. Unless I can’t remember if this was a gift. I hate that. Also, I stacked a book that I picked up from one of those “Please take this away from my shelves” that characterizes university life. No, not theft from a library. Occasionally some colleague will need space for new materials, retire, die over this very book, whatever. And out into a common area the old ones go. There will be a sign, sometimes an email. I have many books like this. Most of them I remember picking up. This one, on folklore, could prove very useful for next fall. I remember from whence it came, but not the day. That’d be absurd. I’ve had it for a decade or more. Besides, I probably picked it up in the evening or at night, anyway. So, all these books are moved right down the corner.

I am eager to get all this reading underway. I can’t explain that without making it sound even nerdier.

Fine, there’s nothing better than slipping into someone else’s world and seeing their best work.

Just behind the books I have placed a big stack of CDs. This summer I will return to the Re-Listening Project. Longtime readers will not be surprised: we are behind.

Behind the CDs on the desk … you know what … nothing. There’s nothing back there. I took the rest of the stuff and put it below the desk. My old pallet desk (I built it in the pure rebellion of 2017) sits on fancy birch IKEA sawhorses. There’s a shelf on the bottom of each sawhorse. Those shelves need to be cleaned up. I look around my office … all of it needs to get cleaned up. But it’s the kind of cleaning you don’t mind doing? The kind you play loud happy music and do it and wonder why all cleaning doesn’t feel like this? The kind of cleaning that signals progress.

I’m not starting that at 1:19 a.m., as I write this. I must simply bottle this feeling for a more appropriate time. A more appropriate time for progress.

Anyway.

I agree, 869 words is an awful lot of throat clearing, but remember: you came here for this.

We are setting off on a trip. The little graphic above is from airport signage at Dulles. It’s a silly sign for a very standard airport store. The “Oh, shoot, I forgot a book and need an overpriced drink and some earplugs would be nice, and hey, is this neck thing better than my other neck thing? That’s Stellar News!”

We will be gone for several weeks, and you’ll have to figure out where we are. I give you until Wednesday, maybe Thursday at the latest, to get it right.

Here’s your first hint. It’s a long overnight flight. And I’m watching a lot of British media on the seat screen. The UK is not our destination, but we are flying BA and, for some reason, it seems like I should be watching something the flight crew would appreciate as being of their own.

The King’s Speech it is! And probably also some BBC dramas. And maybe some sleep. Tomorrow, when I wake up, we’ll be somewhere else. Or on the way to to somewhere else. It’s a long flight, but I am terrible on planes.

adventures / Ireland / memories / photo / video / Wednesday — Comments Off
20
May 26

Now officially on summertime

I’ve been casually watching this for many years now, and I have noted, in that time, several days where I’ve experienced a 30 degree swing in temperatures. I know there are plenty of places where that happens a lot more regularly. It’s rare enough in the places where I’ve lived, I guess, to be remarkable when you see the forecasts. I am remarking on it now. On the days it has happened and anyone is within earshot I have bored them with my mastery of basic arithmetic. That’s a remark. It’s remarkable.

One of the things that I’ve noticed is that a 30-degree temperature swing seems to be about the extent of it. At least around here. (Here meaning wherever I was at the time.)

Today, the forecast called for a 40-degree swing. The high was forecast at 96 and the low was 56.

So we’ve ruined the weather, or we’ve ruined forecasting. Or both. Either way, this is bad.

We had our year-end faculty meeting today, a four-hour chat in a classroom. There was an agenda. We ended up having to rush through parts of it. I made three comments, two of them substantive, and that was more than enough. (I reminded people of a deadline that is now set for April 2027, and I suggested we see about getting some AEDs installed in the building. I am in the minutes as having participated in the meeting.) Much ground was covered, applause and good cheer was shared. Lunch was university-catered chicken-salad sliders.

And sometime soon after we got home the new weather system blew in. You could almost see it bearing down on us, coming out of the southwest.

We got a bit of rain — good, we needed it, and probably some more, we’re already in a severe drought — even as most of the system went to the north. Looked impressive.

Cooled thinks right off. After three days of 90+ temperatures we’ll be in the 50s through the weekend.

I might have mentioned this, but one of my university colleagues is an atmospheric scientist and she’s been doing some work in this area. Apparently the inconsistent spring is a signal of climate change problems. We broke the weather. Or the climate. Or the forecasting. Perhaps all three.

I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation and sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. Enjoy. I still am!

This is the last week of this feature. (For now, anyway.) We are spending it looking at the majesty of Malin Head, the northernmost part of Ireland.

adventures / cycling / Ireland / Monday / photo / video — Comments Off
18
May 26

Suddenly summer

Grades submitted. Held a Zoom meeting this morning for a student employee. We talked for about 35 minutes, which was four more than I wanted to keep the student on the call. That was my fault. It usually is. Now I’m trying to get my email under control. Inbox Zero isn’t happening anytime soon, but I’m hoping to get to Inbox 30 or 40 before this time next week.

It’s a whole thing.

Anyway, one more meeting this week, a long one, on Wednesday. And then on to other things.

We went out for a ride, Saturday. This was the 25 mile time trial. I’d like to think I was going fast on this road. I never go fast on this road.

That’s seven miles and change into the route. By then we’d gone … lessee … roughly all four of the cardinal directions and we’re getting buffeted my breezes and gusts from three of them. About eight miles from there we finally got a tailwind, and for a good long while it felt like a real bike ride, like I knew what I was doing, like I could make the bike, and maybe the road, do anything I wanted. I bunny hopped both rails of a railroad crossing without trying hard. The wheels were humming in a most satisfying way. I was hitting false flats and was still able to accelerate. It was an immensely satisfying feeling, one of the reasons you go out and do this, a feeling I’d have more if I was in just a bit better shape.

And then, suddenly, it was all gone. I didn’t even notice the moment it changed, for it wasn’t even a moment, it was just a different thing. Well, then, as I turned back into the headwind, I resigned to trying to at least pedal smoothly over the last few miles. My lovely bride was up the road and gone. Fueling gone wrong once again, I figured. At mile 22 or so, I saw her taillight ahead of me. About two miles later, I caught up to her, which shouldn’t be happening, considering. She’d bonked. Fueling gone wrong.

It was her second intense workout of the day.

Later in the day, the sky turned into these odd colors.

Then, today, I went out for a ride at around 11 a.m., because it was still mild. Mild meaning mid-80s. One of my apps blipped and thinks that, for a quarter of a mile, I was doing 230+ mph. I was not riding 230+ mph. I did, later, record a third of a mile at 27 miles per hour, which I haven’t done in a while, and, sometime after that, a 20 mph mile, notable only because much of it was up a slight incline and that’s where I decided it was too hot to keep going. Eventually, you’ll get too hot and mess up somehow.

It was 92 degrees when I got back to the house. Calling it was probably the right idea.

We’re going to have three days of 90s in the row here in the middle of May. The seasons mean nothing anymore.

I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation and sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. Enjoy. I still am!

This is the last week of this feature. (For now, anyway.) We are going to spend it all looking at the majesty of Malin Head, the northernmost part of Ireland.