Graduation and Mothers Day

To come over 4,000 miles (4,018 to be exact) for a long weekend to see your sister's graduation is pretty nice, but it was made much more palatable with the "free" flight using miles, seeing our nephew and the rest of our family. Lins and Erin left for St. Ben's after welcoming Meaghan and Ryan's new litle girl into the world to celebrate Jamie's graduation. I think we all agreed it was pretty special to have all four sisters under the same stars in Minnesota, with nobody being more happy than Darrell and Monique. 

Jamie was blessed with pretty good weather for the always unpredictable early May and friends and family were on hand to give a hand to the graduate. One more to go!!!

And into the old drinking holes.  Its great to see Darrell protecting the Leinies from the ever-present stench of the LaPlayette, where Erin and I spent many late nights and early mornings during our glory days. This was the first time back there for both of us together) since our graduation in May '03....where does the time go. We all went to dinner at Anton's before the scene below unfolded with Erin's cousins, getting news that Kamie and John were about to have her new little guy during dinner. Its definitely baby mania these days!

Following the festivities, we got a ride back home and saw Theo once more at the Red Stag supper club for Mother's Day brunch. The food was okay, but not worth blogging about:-) Afterwards we went for a walk along the river by Nicollet island, which is actually a very removed and scenic walk from downtown. It was a great weekend and unfortunately for Erin it was back to the big smoke, and I was going to be apart from my lovely wife for two whole weeks, which is about 13 days more than we can tolerate!

Theo and the Twins

It isn't that often when a new member of the family comes along, so naturally we had to make the trip to see the newest, Theo, a couple weeks ago. Lissa and Jeremy are now proud parents of the cutest little guy in South Minneapolis, and that means Erin and I are now aunt and uncle! We made it home a couple weeks ago and Lissa, Jeremy and Theo were waiting to greet us! It was quite the treat to meet the little guy, I can't wait to take him to the skating rink! Did I mention my dad is now not just a dad but a grandpa too!

We played with him for a couple hours before Betchie picked us up for the Twins. He was barely two weeks old when we met him, so naturally he slept, ate and went to the bathroom. We're thinking he's on pace to sing the Gopher Rouser in 14 weeks. 

We love our little nephew!!

We met Linsey, who arrived from SF and met us at the light rail station and the four of us headed to Target field. This has been such a long time coming, suffering in the dome for my entire life has now came to an end that the Twins have a new home! As perhaps the most geographically removed season ticket holder, I intended to make every game I could when home!

The game was crappy, the weather was worse, but the sights and sounds of Target Field made up for the unpredictable weather and Twins hitting. We stopped by Hrbek's bar after the game for another Summit. Betch and I were in heaven, Lins and Erin were just happy to see eachother. 

Day Trip: Canterbury, England

A few weekends ago, Erin and I were craving an excursion outside the city. With an abundance of day trip options, we wanted to choose wisely as free Saturdays cannot be taken lightly. We opted for a trip to the Southeast of England, specifically Canterbury. Much of medieval England history was written here, as Canterbury Cathedral was the head of the Catholic Church in England for centuries and is where the Archbishop sits today. 

Canterbury’s history dates back to prehistoric times, with a significant roman influence.  Christianity came to England in the sixth century where St. Augustine set up the Cathedral and it has since been central city in England. There are several monasteries, churches, an old priory, an inn dating to the 13^th century, and lots of great historical buildings and streets. 

Getting to Canterbury from central London is about as easy as getting lost in the medieval streets of the town itself. Trains depart from St. Pancras station every half hour on the Southeastern train link and take about an hour, with part of the journey being on the new high speed track. A round trip day ticket costs about $40.

The town is two blocks (5 minutes) from the old town, which still has a respectable portion of its medieval walls in tact. We spend the first 90 minutes just getting our bearings, checking out the old inn/hospital/chapel on the main street, where the gentleman working at the desk was extremely well versed on the history of the town.

After walking around some more, we worked up an appetite and got a picnic at a cute little café/gourmet foods shop and had a nice picnic along the river surrounding the old town. 

After lunch, we made our way to the famous cathedral, which is still where the head of the Church of England sits today. The church became a site of pilgrimage when King Henry II murdered his old friend Thomas Becket in the church after power struggles came to a head. 

I strongly encourage reading a non-fiction book by Ken Follett titled Pilars of the Earth, which focuses on the struggles between the Church, State, and people and culminates around the time of the famous murder. There is even stain glass depicting the famous murder. 

The church was impressive, larger than many, smaller than York Minster Cathedral, but without question the centerpiece of the town.

Following the church, we wandered around a little more before catching the 3:30pm train, capping off a highly successful and stress free day trip. 

Day Trip: Greenwich (Mean)Time

A few weeks ago, Erin and I took a lazy Saturday to make our way to Greenwich, which is on the eastern side of London, about 45 minutes commute from us on the opposite side of the city. Greenwich is the home to Astrological Museum and a Maritime Museum. It is best known for its maritime history and as giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian (0° longitude) and Greenwich Mean Time.

Along with establishing itself as an instrumental research center in plotting distances and locations at sea, Greenwich was home to impressive palaces that housed many of the Tutors, including Henry VIII. The area is now a UNESCO heritage site. 

When we arrived, we grabbed a cappuccino at the Greenwich market before heading up to the Royal Observatory, which is where the Prime Meridian was born.

Erin and I took the opportunity to kiss from each side of the world!

After wandering around and checking out the old time and mapping instruments, we headed for lunch at the Greenwich Union, which is the flagship store for the Meantime Brewery, one of the highest regarded in the country. They had about 8 Meantime beers on tap, from the common ones you can find at other bars (being the few that actually serve the beer) to seasonal taps such as Meantime Porter and IPA. I would agree with the critics that the beer is among the best I’ve had in England. The food is excellent gasto pub style food which makes it a must visit when visiting Greenwich. 

All in all the day was a success and it is a good day trip for those spending an extended trip in London. I would suggest if you are in London for less than a week, not to commit over half a day to the site, instead see places such as Windsor or Hampton Court.

how SLO can you GO?

We have been a bit negligent lately on updating the blog. This is not due to being boring or not exploring, but instead resulting from our shotty internet service. It was been running at about 3-5 Mbps, which I understand by waiting 10 minutes for a page to load is VERY slow. Hopefully it'll be running fast again soon, as otherwise my MLB.tv package will be $100 wasted! If it isn't running, we'll have to make a couple trips to Starbucks to utilise their free wifi.

All is good here, Erin and I have had a couple interest day trips to Grenwich to see the astrological museum (and the nearby pubs of course), and even got out of the city last Saturday to Centerbury, and enjoyed the Cathedral and old town, which is a great escape from London for the day (if you ever really feel the need to escape).  We have a bank holiday weekend this weekend and will be going to Salisbury to do a bit of the same. We'll be back in Minny on the 6th of May to see our newest family member, Theo, as well as Meaghan and Ryan's new family member!  WOW, time flies.

Until next time.....

Istanbul, Turkey

Istanbul, Turkey, a vibrant city with an amazing past, present, and likely future. As the capital of various empires including the holy roman empire, ottoman empire, and a history dating back to Neolithic times resting at the crossroads between east and west, seems like a pretty cool place, right?

We arrived at the beginning of a long weekend and got into our first Turkish car accident only minutes after leaving the airport, when some punk rear-ended our hotel van! Quite an arrival! We eventually struggled through traffic with our bum bumper and got to out hotel, Hotel Turkoman, which I would recommend to anyone. It is about 50 yards from the Blue Mosque, so you can't really complain about the sunsets over the city from the rooftop terrace!

We had a few hours to kill before Cam and Emily made it to the city, so Erin and I wandered around the Grand Bazar to scope out one of the most well known markets in the world.

Following our wandering, we enjoyed sunset on the roof and played some cribbage while our friends arrived. Here is the view from our terrace at night of the Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmed Mosque). That night, we went out with a friend of ours, Khaliq, who lives in Istanbul. We had dinner at a local spot in Taksim that included lots of Raki, which is essentially Grappa, or fire water! It helped the night get off to the right foot and end on the wrong, being a 4:30am taxi ride back home from the Supperclub!

The next morning we shook off the previous nights' festivities with a doner kabab and some tourist activities, including the Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace and the grand bazar and spice bazar. It was amazing to get to see one of the world's most famous mosques as non-muslims aren't typically allowed to go peak around.

Grand bazar

That night we went to dinner at 360, which has amazing food. Unfortunately we made it an early night as we couldn't handle another night that wandered into the wee hours. The views from the restaurant were great. If you book there and have the early reservation at 8pm, get there right at 8 because they'll kick you out of your seat for the 10pm booking. The waiter was probably the worst ever, basically pulling our chairs from our seats and didn't offer if we wanted coffee and a drink or desert at the bar or anything and was extremely unpleasant the whole night. It marks the first time I didn't tip the waiter at dinner in my life. A bummer as it took away from the food a bit.

The next day we met Khaliq again and went to the Asian side for lunch on Baghdad Street, which was more like Malibu than Iraq! The asian side isn't too different from the European, maybe a little more residential. Following that we took at 3 hour boat ride on the Bospherous with a little tug boat. Though old school, it was still great as they gave us a couple beers to sip on while on the tour.

That night we went to a restaurant called Rafik that was recommended in the Eyewitness Traveler Top 10 guide. It was a nice atmosphere but again the service lacked and they didn't have the first three fresh fish choices Khaliq tried to get. It was okay, as the friendly staff at a nearby rooftop bar were nice enough to join us in the photo as we had another fun and exciting night out (although Emily might not agree the next morning was fun)!

The next day, our last, Cam and Emily had to catch their flight so after lunch we went to the Basilica Cistern, which was one of the coolest things we have seen in our lives. This massive underground chamber, built in the 6th century (yes that's 1300 years ago) during the Holy Roman Empire, used to hold Istanbul's water supply and was built directly beneath an old church that is no longer standing. The chamber is much bigger than we expected, over 100,000 square feet containing 336 marble columns. The lighting made for some amazing pics! The James Bond movie, From Russia with Love, had a scene filmed here and there was a crew spotting out some shots when we were there (you can see them walking on water in the second pic).

All in all, it was a very well balanced weekend between eating, touring, drinking, and dancing! Istanbul was much more western than we expected, but it nonetheless was a great long weekend and a memorable experience!

Hampstead

Erin and I recently took advantage of a nice and sunny London Saturday and grabbed the Northern Line up to Hampstead to check out what is described as a village within the city. We arrived, walked around the city and poked into random markets, gourmet food shops, pubs and art dealers. The town center does indeed have a village feel to it and its worth exploring for a day if in London for an extended visit. Nearby Hampstead Heath park is also a relaxing escape that all visitors should take a walk through. There is a building on the massive park that was supposed to have a highly touted restaurant/cafe. However, it was closed for repair and replaced by a less exciting sandwich kiosk. Hopefully it'll open back up this summer. 

We of course made our way to two different pubs during the day to break up all the walking around the village and park. The first pub we went to was the Spainard's Inn and had a pint of Hooegarden and cloudy cider. The bar has been around since 1585 and is on the street that bisects the park on the way to the main building in the park. It is definitely on the tourist map (rightfully so). There is a huge beer garden in the back for warm summer days.

This is the park very close to the village center with great views of London in the distance. It's a great place to escape the city and enjoy the fresh air. 

The second pub we made it to was the Holly Bush, a brilliant pub up the hill from the tube stop with a great selection of beer on tap (Fuller's selection I believe, but they have some good alternatives to London Pride). The pub was one of the best we've sipped at since coming to London and I highly recommend it.

Calcotada

Last weekend we flew to Barcelona to participate in a traditional Spanish calcotada - a festival that combines the calcot and (al)ada wine.  Colcots are green onions that grow between the end of winter and April in the Tarragona part of Catalonia in Spain.  They are mild, look like leeks and are barbequed over an open fire and then served with romesco sauce and wine.  

You show up at about 1pm and there is no waiting. The second you arrive (in our case at Mas Boronat, near Tarragona), its off to the races with calcot's, wine, cava, olives, etc. To say this is messy is an understatement.  You eat the onions with your hands, stripping off the charcoal with your fingers.  

And rather than the common glass, you drink wine family-style from a perron - a wine decanter with a long spout.  Perron and twenty-something American's = dangerous combination. It was like 11th grade physics class experiments (substitute wine for water)!

Transport a us to the middle of Spain and give them a perron and competitive pouring, spring break style begins.  Pours from great heights, trust pours, double blind red-white vertical pours, and even the blow pour.

Keep in mind this is at about 2pm.  Then lunch at 2:30-4, capped off by a long walk through the vineyards and a dance party in caves dating back several longer than you can remember.

After dinner things obviously started heating up courtesy of our great planners, Lee and Laura. This is the Catalan rendition of Thriller. After several more songs, more Perron (aka the Rooster), initiations that consisted of wearing an ancient Flemish battle helmet...

...and drinking from the Perron simultaneously, and a failed worm dance, we decided enough is enough and hit the hay (but not before some fellow Calcotada-goers made it back down to the caves before getting sent to bed by our wonderful hosts at Mas Boronat). 

Thanks again Lee and Laura for the great weekend, to Keith (top left), Joelskie, Funenweisen, Strauss, Todd, Carol, Lizzy, Kristen, Cuni, Jim, Monica, and any others I missed that contributed to the terrific weekend!! Big props to Mas Boronat for letting us hold it down for the night!!!

Night on the Hill

This past Friday Erin, Kate, Stu and I had a great dinner at Assaggi on Chepstow Place in Notting Hill. Its an unassuming Italian restaurant with about a dozen tables, menu in only Italian, all Italian servers. The place screams character and delivers just that. The only part about our meal that wasn't so memorable was the mains (though Erin's pasta was delicious). But the starters that ranged from fresh mozzarella eggplant to scallops to high quality parma ham were a hit, as was the chesse and dessert courses. The food was great but perhaps the best part was the manager who explained the menu with passion and detail, giving us a better idea than our rough translations would have otherwise. 

After dinner we did what any other rational Notting Hill based-diners would do, go for a post dinner dance at the Notting Hill Arts Club. The theme was caribbean-indie with a hint of turkish influence. Regardless, it was good to dance the 6 courses off!