Family Style (2010)

We've been without visitors for awhile (hint, hint). So to our great fortune, we kicked off the summer with not one, but two siblings arriving in London.  Jamie arrived first for a three week stop-over before departing for a four month project/adventure in India and Nepal.  We're slightly perturbed that she is putting our travels to shame.  Seriously, her pictures and experiences are wide-opening and incredible and I can't wait to follow her up the Himalayas.

Jenna, our new roommate, arrived two hours later.  London is her first foray into European waters.  She'll be interning for the summer as well as providing entertainment on our upcoming trips.  We're happy to have her and she's also happy to have us ie. no hostels.

Day 1: Picnic overlooking Big Ben and Parliament. 

Double-decker bus, which decided to stop and not take us to our final destination.

A quick pint in the oldest pub in London.

Completed a mock commute to Jenna's new office.

New Glarus and Verona, Wisconsin

After a week of work in our Minneapolis office, two more Twins games that didn't rain out, including the first win I got to see in the new ballpark and some more family visits; the following weekend was here.  After hearing that Pedro's wedding was going to be near Madison, Bauer and I decided it would be the perfect opportunity to venture to New Glarus Brewing Company, a highly coveted beer that has such high demand that it isn't sold outside of Wisconsin. We left at 7am in order to make it at a reasonable time and then have time to change for the wedding. New Glarus recently relocated to a brand spankin new brewery just down the road from the old town that was settled by the Swiss and looks more like an alpine village than a Southern Wisconsin town. 

When you get into the brewery, you pay for the tour and get a (US) pint glass to go fill up in the tasting room down the hall. They had 7 different beers on tap, with a couple that were pretty rare (Golden Ale brewed in Trappist style and a Cherry beer that was like a Lambic). Then you can take the self-guided tour which includes some bad-ass wort tanks!

After the self-guided tour, Bauer and I decided to do the tasting as well, as it is like kids in a candy shop when Bauer and I are in a brewery. 

After the glorious tasting we headed downstairs to the bottleshop and picked up some for after the wedding. It is definitely worth taking a weekend from Minneapolis (or Chicago) to visit the brewery. 

Of course the tour isn't complete without heading into town to the Glarner-Stube (I think) to get some Swiss-themed food (and another New Glarus - the only beer served on tap). As you can see, it was full of character. 

We departed from the restaurant in haste to make it to the wedding in Verona for Pete and Jenny's wedding. The lovely couple had a great day as the weather was beautiful and all their friends and family were there to share the day!  The restaurant was at a really beautiful golf course that served great food and wine all night. The dance was wonderful and everyone had a great time.

Pete was so high in demand that I barely had a chance to sneak a photo with him. Congratulations Pedro and Jenny, thanks for the great night!!!

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!