Thank God for technology. I'm so glad that I can buy all of my Christmas presents online through Amazon, download any music I like from iTunes, any time of day, and keep all of my friends up to date via Facebook every time my mood changes.
Unfortunately, all is not wine and roses. For example, it was via an automated system that British Airways informed us that our flight back to the US was cancelled for tomorrow. 'We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this has caused' said the mail. Now, I don't know about you, but I have a pretty difficult time locating any degree of 'sincere' in an automated email. OK, I understand the need - BA (or anyone else) wouldn't be in business long if they didn't capitalize on the efficiencies afforded by automation, but a human had to actually author the text (or at least the boilerplate) for the mail. Did this unknown author really think that anyone would feel better if the mail included a 'sincere' apology? Hey, BA, here's an idea. If you want to 'sincerely' apologize, how about giving me a discount on my next flight? Or crediting my frequent flyer account (and Michele's and the kids' accounts, too) with 50,000 air miles. How's that for sincerity?
Anyway, we now have an extra day to prepare for our journey. This also means we have an extra day to feed the kids. There's a sort of famine mentality that sets in around here at Christmas time. Everyone knows the stores will only be open on an occasional and apparently random basis for the next week or so, so they clear absolutely everything out of the food stores in an effort to ensure that no one goes hungry between Christmas and New Year's. It's the British equivalent of the rush on food stores that happens every time The Weather Channel predicts another "Storm of the Century". This also means that, even if we CAN find an open shop on Boxing Day (that's tomorrow, the 26th), chances are we'll only find some leftover prunes and a fruitcake or two.
Speaking of fruitcake, this fine tradition in alive and well here, except that people here actually eat them, unlike in the US where everyone just passes the same fruitcake around to each other year after year (I've even known some to be handed down from generation to generation). They are also iced, with some sort of stiff white icing vaguely reminiscent of the layer of fat around a pork roast. Most unsettling.
There are a great many culinary traditions here which I can't fully appreciate or simply don't understand. Blood sausage. Runny eggs. Haggis. But the most wonderfully oddity by a furlong that I've yet come across has to be the stuffed goose. Mind you, there's nothing unusual about stuffing a goose per se; what's unusual is that they stuff the goose with a turkey. And they stuff the turkey with a duck, and the duck with a chicken, and the chicken with a game hen, or possibly a pigeon or some other smallish bird. The net result is sort of a Matryoshka doll of fowl. Apparently, the butchers can bone the things while keeping the carcass intact, thereby allowing for a pretty solidly packed and easily sliceable bird(s). I understand it's delicious, though I've yet to find a recipie for it, partly because I've no idea what it's called, and cookbooks tend to be indexed by such mundane terms as 'turkey' and 'chicken', and not by 'guinea fowl-stuffed-chicken-stuffed-duck-stuffed-turkey-stuffed-goose'.
Well, my Christmas cheer (such as it was) has now worn off, and so I bid you all a Merry Christmas, and to all a good night.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Sunday, December 9, 2007
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
Despite having worked in the financial services industry for much of my career, I have a track record of bad investments. I pooh-poohed AOL in the early 90's, bought Starbase (SBAS) at $3.50 just before it dropped to like $0.00001 and thought the Google IPO at $180 was too expensive (the stock recently topped $400).
One notable exception to this pattern, however, was my Swivel Straight Christmas Tree Stand (As Seen On TV!). I don't think they even sell these anymore, but in 1996 when I first moved to Philadelphia, they were all the rage. It has a separate bucket into which the tree is placed and secured, then the bucket assembly is inserted into sort of a ball socket device, which you can turn and, well, swivel until the tree is straight.
This techology didn't come cheap. At $50, it probably cost more than my couch, but it avoided all of the Christmas tree hassle, the tree never fell over, and it lasted for years.
Last year, I allowed myself to be talked into a new-fangled tree stand with a single spike that inserts into a pre-drilled hole in the bottom of the tree. Great concept, except for three things: not every tree place drills holes, not every tree place that drills holes drills them straight, and no tree place in the UK has ever thought of drilling a hole. So this wonderful tree stand (which, by the way, fell over last year, depositing a gallon of sappy water on the carpet of our old family room) is utterly useless.
True to form, I also decided, for reasons still unclear to me, to sell my perfectly servicable Swivel Straight Christmas Tree Stand (As Seen On TV!) for something like $5 to a neighbor before we moved. So now we have no tree stand. Great strategy, Conroy.
Michele bought two strands of lights, one of which didn't work. On returning that one, she could only find sets for £15. I realize I complain a lot about how expensive things are here, but come on. $30 for 100 friggin' Christmas lights? They don't even play an annoying tune.
Speaking of expensive, we did a little shopping yesterday in Wimbledon Village. For those of you who've been here, Wimbledon Village is the nice end of Wimbledon. We live in the other end. We looked at some nice trees whilst there and nearly bought one before we found out it was £50. You do the math. That's one expensive tree. It ought to come with a manservant to water it for that price.
Ours was a bit cheaper. We bought it down the street at the guy who sells flowers on the corner when the mood strikes him. He was there when we moved in and we thought "How nice! We have a flower stall right down the street". Then he buggered off and we didn't see him again until about a month ago. Apparently the flower business allows him to take the summer off. Or maybe it's the Christmas tree business where he really makes his money.
I carried the tree from the corner. It was kind of funny, me carrying a tree down the road. I got a lot of looks from people, which is unusual, because it seems that no matter what you do here, no one will look at you. It's sort of an institutionalized ignorance.
So now, tree decorated, I am roasting a chicken while Michele writes out more Christmas cards. Next year, e-cards for everyone. Now that would have been a good investment.
One notable exception to this pattern, however, was my Swivel Straight Christmas Tree Stand (As Seen On TV!). I don't think they even sell these anymore, but in 1996 when I first moved to Philadelphia, they were all the rage. It has a separate bucket into which the tree is placed and secured, then the bucket assembly is inserted into sort of a ball socket device, which you can turn and, well, swivel until the tree is straight.
This techology didn't come cheap. At $50, it probably cost more than my couch, but it avoided all of the Christmas tree hassle, the tree never fell over, and it lasted for years.
Last year, I allowed myself to be talked into a new-fangled tree stand with a single spike that inserts into a pre-drilled hole in the bottom of the tree. Great concept, except for three things: not every tree place drills holes, not every tree place that drills holes drills them straight, and no tree place in the UK has ever thought of drilling a hole. So this wonderful tree stand (which, by the way, fell over last year, depositing a gallon of sappy water on the carpet of our old family room) is utterly useless.
True to form, I also decided, for reasons still unclear to me, to sell my perfectly servicable Swivel Straight Christmas Tree Stand (As Seen On TV!) for something like $5 to a neighbor before we moved. So now we have no tree stand. Great strategy, Conroy.
Michele bought two strands of lights, one of which didn't work. On returning that one, she could only find sets for £15. I realize I complain a lot about how expensive things are here, but come on. $30 for 100 friggin' Christmas lights? They don't even play an annoying tune.
Speaking of expensive, we did a little shopping yesterday in Wimbledon Village. For those of you who've been here, Wimbledon Village is the nice end of Wimbledon. We live in the other end. We looked at some nice trees whilst there and nearly bought one before we found out it was £50. You do the math. That's one expensive tree. It ought to come with a manservant to water it for that price.
Ours was a bit cheaper. We bought it down the street at the guy who sells flowers on the corner when the mood strikes him. He was there when we moved in and we thought "How nice! We have a flower stall right down the street". Then he buggered off and we didn't see him again until about a month ago. Apparently the flower business allows him to take the summer off. Or maybe it's the Christmas tree business where he really makes his money.
I carried the tree from the corner. It was kind of funny, me carrying a tree down the road. I got a lot of looks from people, which is unusual, because it seems that no matter what you do here, no one will look at you. It's sort of an institutionalized ignorance.
So now, tree decorated, I am roasting a chicken while Michele writes out more Christmas cards. Next year, e-cards for everyone. Now that would have been a good investment.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Vienna
Phew. (In England, they pronounce the p and the h separately, so that it sounds a bit like pee-hew. Just another cultural oddity). November was a busy month. Between my trip to Key West, our pseudo-Thanksgiving dinner (which was great fun, although we may serve meatloaf next year), our trip to Vienna (more on this in a bit) and my trip to New York right off the back of that, I feel like I've spent most of the month in airports.
Speaking of airports, I must tell you all (well, both of you, anyway) about a great program I've been enrolled in for some time, but am now only just getting some use out of. With airport security being what it is these days (how long d'you think it'll be before we have to go thru the metal detector naked?) you have to be at the airport pretty damn early to make sure you catch your flight. As a result, you spend a lot of time savouring the unusual odors from the other passengers in The Waiting Area of Death. The is, unless you happen to be a member of Priority Pass, which gets you into a bunch of airline lounges for a nominal fee. This is the best thing since printed money as far as I'm concerned. Most of the lounges have a bar, or at least a bunch of snacks, comfortable seating, WiFi. One at Heathrow even has an upper deck from which you can see both runways and watch the planes take off and land - kind of interesting for grownups, but really fascinating for kids. If you travel on your own dime (and therefore don't have business class lounge access), it's definitely worth a look.
OK, so Vienna. The kids are actually becoming really good travelers. They know how to wait in line at checkin (a skill one can't avoid learning in Heathrow airport, possibly the worst organized institution on the planet), they don't mind the indignities of the security screening, and they have learned to make the best of airline sandwiches by combining the edible bits from each offering until they arrive, sticky-fingered, at the logical conclusion: tuna and sweetcorn with cheddar, ham and pickle.
What they do not know, however, is how to stay up past 8 or sleep in later than 6.
This, as you might imagine, requires something of an adjustment for a nightowl such as myself. Fortunately, I hit on the perfect strategy - put the kids to bed, and then go out again. Unfortunately, this approach has one drawback. You may have guessed it already. Yes, it means that someone has to stay with the kids. So it was I who found the little organic cafe with the best vegetable lasagne and the Italian waiter who's lived everywhere and moved to Austria for love (not for money, as he was quick to point out). And it was I who got to have Vienna's best Wiener Schnitzel at a place called Figl Muller. And it was I who got to go out at 2am to find a pharmacy. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
We arrived on Friday afternoon and, after a quick stop at the hotel to check in, had a bit of a wander. The thing about traveling with kids is that they can only take in so many architecturally significant or aesthetically pleasing structures before they go into total meltdown, so we've learned to keep our sightseeing to a minimum and instead find the nearest playground. Vienna fortunately has at least two very nice ones which our children enjoyed immensely.
After ticking off a few more items on our list of European Playgrounds to Visit, we headed for what we specifically went to Vienna to see - the Christmas Markets. These are sprayed around the city like so much glittery graffitti. On our first night, we visited the largest and most famous, the Christkindlmarkt in front of the city hall (called, appropriately enough, the Rathaus). While mostly full of stalls selling kitschy junk, it was a lot of fun, in large part due to something called Gluh wien, which is some sort of mulled wine - just the thing for warming up on a chilly November night. I had bratwurst, the kids had frankfurters, we rode a little train, I spoke what little German I know. It was heavenly.
The kids in bed, Michele and I whispered in the dark until they fell asleep, at which point I ventured out in search of a real dinner. It was then that I discovered the cafe around the corner from the hotel, on a back street. I'm not terribly picky when it comes to food any more. If a place looks reasonably clean and serves beer, that's about all I really need. This one fit the bill, so in I went.
I may have mentioned that I don't speak German. Predictably, I also can't read it, so the menu was completely unintelligible. I know the words for beer ('biere', helpfully pronounced 'beer'), please ('bitte', which seems to be a versatile word, as people seemed to drop it frequently into conversation), thank you ('danke schoen' - everyone knows that from the Wanye Newton song), 'I don't speak German' ('Ich spreche kein Deutsche'), and 'Do you speak English' ('Sprechen-zie Englisch'?). But now you know pretty much all the German you need in Vienna, because the minute you open your mouth, they start speaking English. What a helpful place!
Roberto, the moved-for-love-not-money waiter I mentioned earlier was most helpful. He taught me another useful phrase, 'Noch eine, bitte', which means, loosely, 'barman, another of these please', especially when spoken in conjunction with an elaborate pantomime of drinking from a glass. I asked Roberto to order me the four course menu, which involved a red vegetable soup, (hearty and tasty), a salad with both greens and some sort of potato and vinegar mixture (also tasty), the aforementioned veggie lasagne (huge, tasty), and a dessert which for the life of me I can't remember. I took a second portion of veggie lasagne back to the hotel for Michele. All this, plus two beers came to just €25.00 (£17 or $32).
Next day, we took a tram ride around the city (we didn't intend to, it was just that I forgot the map back at the hotel, so we ended up going in a circle to see what there was to see). We ended up at another Christmas market, this one selling much nicer things and with far fewer people. Unfortunately, Michael, being three, insisted on touching everything, so it was kind of a miserable time for him.
After lunch (some sort of potato thing with onions and peppers fried in butter, I think) and some more gluh wein, we decided to give Michael a break from not being able to touch things and went to the nearby Natural History museum. Now this may not sound like fun, but the kids loved it, especially the hall of fish. They sat for about an hour drawing pictures of the funny looking fish they saw there.
Since the Rathaus was on the way back to the hotel, we decided to feed the kids there again, and this time, we actually went in to the Rathaus, where there were a bunch of activities for the kids. We selected baking. The kids had a ball - got covered in flour, covered in dough, and got to keep their paper hats.
After the kids were asleep, I had another nice tour of the city, ate the Wiener Schnitzel (it was a little dry, but tasty and big). Got back to the hotel about 11:30. At 2:30, Michael woke up shivering uncontrollably. Then he got a fever. I went off to find an all-night pharmacy. These are not as plentiful as they are in America. The all night drugstore is a bit like a speakeasy. You ring the bell, they open a small door, you tell them what you want, they go get it and pass it to you thru the little door. All very back alley, cloak and dagger stuff. Tell 'em John sent you.
Back at the hotel, Michael had thrown up and was very hot. It was neither a pleasant nor a restful night. Next day, we all sat in the room and watched German TV until it was time to go to the airport. Tom and Gerry is still just as funny in German.
There's still a lot of catching up to do. The trip to NY, the visit to my family in the Poconos, Caroline's birthday. But tomorrow's a big day - Michele and I have 4 hours to ourselves - so I'll go to bed now and save those for another time.
Auf Wiedersehen!
Speaking of airports, I must tell you all (well, both of you, anyway) about a great program I've been enrolled in for some time, but am now only just getting some use out of. With airport security being what it is these days (how long d'you think it'll be before we have to go thru the metal detector naked?) you have to be at the airport pretty damn early to make sure you catch your flight. As a result, you spend a lot of time savouring the unusual odors from the other passengers in The Waiting Area of Death. The is, unless you happen to be a member of Priority Pass, which gets you into a bunch of airline lounges for a nominal fee. This is the best thing since printed money as far as I'm concerned. Most of the lounges have a bar, or at least a bunch of snacks, comfortable seating, WiFi. One at Heathrow even has an upper deck from which you can see both runways and watch the planes take off and land - kind of interesting for grownups, but really fascinating for kids. If you travel on your own dime (and therefore don't have business class lounge access), it's definitely worth a look.
OK, so Vienna. The kids are actually becoming really good travelers. They know how to wait in line at checkin (a skill one can't avoid learning in Heathrow airport, possibly the worst organized institution on the planet), they don't mind the indignities of the security screening, and they have learned to make the best of airline sandwiches by combining the edible bits from each offering until they arrive, sticky-fingered, at the logical conclusion: tuna and sweetcorn with cheddar, ham and pickle.
What they do not know, however, is how to stay up past 8 or sleep in later than 6.
This, as you might imagine, requires something of an adjustment for a nightowl such as myself. Fortunately, I hit on the perfect strategy - put the kids to bed, and then go out again. Unfortunately, this approach has one drawback. You may have guessed it already. Yes, it means that someone has to stay with the kids. So it was I who found the little organic cafe with the best vegetable lasagne and the Italian waiter who's lived everywhere and moved to Austria for love (not for money, as he was quick to point out). And it was I who got to have Vienna's best Wiener Schnitzel at a place called Figl Muller. And it was I who got to go out at 2am to find a pharmacy. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
We arrived on Friday afternoon and, after a quick stop at the hotel to check in, had a bit of a wander. The thing about traveling with kids is that they can only take in so many architecturally significant or aesthetically pleasing structures before they go into total meltdown, so we've learned to keep our sightseeing to a minimum and instead find the nearest playground. Vienna fortunately has at least two very nice ones which our children enjoyed immensely.
After ticking off a few more items on our list of European Playgrounds to Visit, we headed for what we specifically went to Vienna to see - the Christmas Markets. These are sprayed around the city like so much glittery graffitti. On our first night, we visited the largest and most famous, the Christkindlmarkt in front of the city hall (called, appropriately enough, the Rathaus). While mostly full of stalls selling kitschy junk, it was a lot of fun, in large part due to something called Gluh wien, which is some sort of mulled wine - just the thing for warming up on a chilly November night. I had bratwurst, the kids had frankfurters, we rode a little train, I spoke what little German I know. It was heavenly.
The kids in bed, Michele and I whispered in the dark until they fell asleep, at which point I ventured out in search of a real dinner. It was then that I discovered the cafe around the corner from the hotel, on a back street. I'm not terribly picky when it comes to food any more. If a place looks reasonably clean and serves beer, that's about all I really need. This one fit the bill, so in I went.
I may have mentioned that I don't speak German. Predictably, I also can't read it, so the menu was completely unintelligible. I know the words for beer ('biere', helpfully pronounced 'beer'), please ('bitte', which seems to be a versatile word, as people seemed to drop it frequently into conversation), thank you ('danke schoen' - everyone knows that from the Wanye Newton song), 'I don't speak German' ('Ich spreche kein Deutsche'), and 'Do you speak English' ('Sprechen-zie Englisch'?). But now you know pretty much all the German you need in Vienna, because the minute you open your mouth, they start speaking English. What a helpful place!
Roberto, the moved-for-love-not-money waiter I mentioned earlier was most helpful. He taught me another useful phrase, 'Noch eine, bitte', which means, loosely, 'barman, another of these please', especially when spoken in conjunction with an elaborate pantomime of drinking from a glass. I asked Roberto to order me the four course menu, which involved a red vegetable soup, (hearty and tasty), a salad with both greens and some sort of potato and vinegar mixture (also tasty), the aforementioned veggie lasagne (huge, tasty), and a dessert which for the life of me I can't remember. I took a second portion of veggie lasagne back to the hotel for Michele. All this, plus two beers came to just €25.00 (£17 or $32).
Next day, we took a tram ride around the city (we didn't intend to, it was just that I forgot the map back at the hotel, so we ended up going in a circle to see what there was to see). We ended up at another Christmas market, this one selling much nicer things and with far fewer people. Unfortunately, Michael, being three, insisted on touching everything, so it was kind of a miserable time for him.
After lunch (some sort of potato thing with onions and peppers fried in butter, I think) and some more gluh wein, we decided to give Michael a break from not being able to touch things and went to the nearby Natural History museum. Now this may not sound like fun, but the kids loved it, especially the hall of fish. They sat for about an hour drawing pictures of the funny looking fish they saw there.
Since the Rathaus was on the way back to the hotel, we decided to feed the kids there again, and this time, we actually went in to the Rathaus, where there were a bunch of activities for the kids. We selected baking. The kids had a ball - got covered in flour, covered in dough, and got to keep their paper hats.
After the kids were asleep, I had another nice tour of the city, ate the Wiener Schnitzel (it was a little dry, but tasty and big). Got back to the hotel about 11:30. At 2:30, Michael woke up shivering uncontrollably. Then he got a fever. I went off to find an all-night pharmacy. These are not as plentiful as they are in America. The all night drugstore is a bit like a speakeasy. You ring the bell, they open a small door, you tell them what you want, they go get it and pass it to you thru the little door. All very back alley, cloak and dagger stuff. Tell 'em John sent you.
Back at the hotel, Michael had thrown up and was very hot. It was neither a pleasant nor a restful night. Next day, we all sat in the room and watched German TV until it was time to go to the airport. Tom and Gerry is still just as funny in German.
There's still a lot of catching up to do. The trip to NY, the visit to my family in the Poconos, Caroline's birthday. But tomorrow's a big day - Michele and I have 4 hours to ourselves - so I'll go to bed now and save those for another time.
Auf Wiedersehen!
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