So, my lovely bike, the wonderful Apollo Jalapeno, has been called a disgrace to all other bikes by my coworker with the obscenely expensive carbon fiber road bike. I think that means it’s pretty good then! And I’ve getting to be a pro with navigating the streets of London. I have pretty much all the routes around North London down pat. They’re basically the back routes that the cab drivers with “The Knowledge” use. That means that there are few traffic lights or buses. I’ve also noticed the pains the English goverment goes through to keep cars on specific roads. They will randomly make a road shrink down so the largest thing that car fit through it is a smallish SUV. Roads suddenly have barriers across them. And best of all, roads that would be an alley way in the US get cut in half with dedicated bike rights-of-way. That is very cool. A bike road. Oh yeah, there are also one-way roads that have bike lanes for going against the traffic.

Anyway, two fun things I’ve found. First, at least for now, if you search for “Apollo Jalapeno” on google, one of my pages is the top choice! Second, I figured that my bike, not being the finest in all the land, was probably not that popular. However, two weekends ago, we were down in Brighton for the weekend (more on that later), and we stumbled upon its doppelganger:

If you look closely, you’ll notice the back tire (or tyre, if you will) is totally flat and the chain is rusted up, so mine is sooo much cooler. But it was funny to just walk into one sitting on the street. I also saw someone up north selling a smaller, childs version of it on eBay. So clearly, I have a pretty hip bike! Long live bright yellow!

Let’s take a little trip back in time. Picture Carolyn and I as newly weds, fresh from getting married. As a lovely gift, Carolyn’s parents got us a snazzy hotel room in the Marriott Hotel in Times Square and tickets to see Spamalot on Broadway. A pretty cool gift. Allow me to share in some of the fun.

We arrived at Port Authority and, being from the NYC area, there’s always some things I have in my head that I need to see and do. Typically, this involves food. We got there too early to check in, so we dropped off our huuuge bag and set out to get some New York pizza. One of the impressive things with NYC pizza is you can pretty much go anywhere in the city and there will be a pretty good pizza place. Here would be me and my pizza (in my hand — only cheese!) and Carolyns (the fancy looking pizza on the plate):

We wandered over to the Hudson River and just soaked in the nice weather with the view of NJ (not a bad view, I assure you!) until it was time to check in. Now, the Marriott in Times Square is known for having funky automated elevators where you go to the bank of elevators, select your floor and it tells you which of the 15 elevators you should go into and then get swept up in a glass elevator with views of all the floors below and the beautiful lobby. We checked in and were sad to see we were only on the 22nd floor (our of about 45). However, as we got to our room, we were more than pleasantly surprised:

Check out that view! With this opportunity, we decided to just spend a couple of hours sitting in our nice room and take in the view. Who needs a bar with a view when you can sit on a couch in a private room instead? Here would be my blushing bride enjoying it:

As is something of a tradition when we see a show, we sought out some Russian food. We needed something near the theatre, and we found one called Russian Samovar. They had nice food and vodka infused with various things like peppers and lemons and so on. Good stuff. Then we made our way to see a fun Broadway musical. Spamalot is a stage version of the hilarious Holy Grail by Monty Python. A number of the original members contributed in various ways with voice overs and writing. Our seats were excellent, in the front row of the first balcony. The show was good fun. The performers were obviously wonderful and the music was good. I tried my best not to compare the musical too much to the movie as, while they are based on the same story, they are obviously not the same thing.

We woke up the next morning and decided to spend a beautiful day in NYC. We went to a small exhibit of wonderful Greek artifacts found in Georgia (the country). There were some stunning gold pieces and whatnot pulled out of the ground there. Then we got me a chicken cutlet sandwich from a good deli (yum!) and then spent the afternoon wandering around Central Park. Eventually we made out way to the Upper West side to meet up with Carolyn’s friends Haley (and meet her new boyfriend — we approved) and Renu at a bar literally called Dive Bar. But. before drinks, we ate at an Argentinian steak house. Man, I missed good steak. The UK definitely lacks in it. Dive Bar had excellent beers and we had a blast with all the fine people there. Alas, eventually, it was time to go. Many thanks to Jim and Linda for such a nice time in the city.

Yesterday was the final day of Wimbledon 2008 at the All-England Club and as many of you know, Nadal came away victorious in the men’s final and Venus in the women’s final.  On thursday the 26th of June, during the first week of the tournament, Dina and I decided to go down and queue up to try to see Wimbledon for ourselves.  I was extremly excited after years of watching Bud Collins and Breakfast at Wimbledon to finally have a chance to see the place in person.

In order to have a good chance of getting in, Dina and I got up at 6:00 am the morning after our second attempt at the Radiohead concert, and hopped on the tube to SW19.  We arrived around 7:30 am and were handed a queue card (we were number 3139 on the line).  The cards kept things nice and orderly as we made our way forward through the line, through security including metal detectors and finally arrived at the gates at around 10:45 am.  Here is a shot of the famous Wimbledon queue.

We entered the grounds around 11:00 am and I barely knew where to look first.  There was the scoreboard with the order of play, St. Mary’s Walk (which I always remember from Bud Collins announcing), Murray Mount (named this year for Andrew Murray - Britain’s current No. 1) and all 20 courts on which play began at noon.  We wandered the grounds for a bit taking it all in.  Here I am on St. Mary’s Walk.

When you queue up for day of tickets at Wimbledon, you are pretty much guaranteed grounds tickets which give you access to Courts 3-19 and standing room for Court 2.  There are a limited number of Centre Court and No. 1 Court tickets available day off but people queue up overnight for those.  Although we were not able to see Center Court or No. 1 Court action, we had plenty to see on all the other courts.  While we were waiting for the matches to start, we had a chance to watch Nadal warming up on one of the smaller courts.  We then wandered over to watch some men’s doubles on Court 6.  Turns out we were watching Nestor and Zimoniic the eventual men’s champions.  Here is Nestor’s serve in action.

We continued up to Murray’s Mount to watch Venus win in straight sets on the big screen showing the match on center court.  Next, we wandered over to watch Jamie Murray (brother to Andrew and strangely reminiscent of John McEnroe in the 80’s) play his doubles match.

We stayed at Wimbledon (at one of the sunniest days I have experienced in England yet) until about 8pm.  Needless to say we watched many matches - singles, doubles, men, women, top seeds and unranked players.  We ended the day peeking over the guardrails to get a glimpse of Venus and Serena playing their doubles match on Court 11.

One of the great things about Wimbledon is their policy on resale tickets.  Anyone who leaves during the day is asked to return their ticket.  After 3pm those tickets are resold on an ongoing basis for 5 pounds with the profits going to charity.  So, it is possible to get on center court or No. 1 court later in the day when other folks have started to go home.  Dina and I didn’t try for resale tickets as we were too busy watching all the matches on Courts 2-19 to bother standing on another line.  Here is a shot of the Order of Play and the updated scores so you can see what a busy day it was.

So, on our day out at Wimbledon we got to see the eventual champions in men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles and women’s doubles at least for a bit of play.  We had a great time!

So I take a lot of enjoyment in trains. I love just looking at transit maps and thinking about how to use public transport to get from one point to another. I love taking train trips. Back in 2002, I took a few days and took the trans-continental train from Oakland to Chicago. Two days in a train and I had a blast. I just have a fun time travelling on these machines that slice through the landscape and provide a unique perspective on the world.
So, in May, as we were driving back to NJ from the last of four weddings in April and May we were attending (including our own, of course!), we passed something called Northlandz. This was in the middle of nowhere (or at least it felt like it) on the NJ side of the Delaware River. Carolyn looks at it and says “Matt we should turn around and go there. I think you might like this”. And boy did I ever.

A number of years ago, a man named Bruce Williams Zaccagnino started building a model railroad in his house. Well, he is apparently pretty enthusiastic because, over time he needed to build additions to his house to keep it all in. Every year, he would invite friends to come and check out the amazing world he’d created. It reached a point where he decided to give it its own home and Northlandz was born. It’s a mile long walk of various landscapes with model railroads over it. He’s built it in 3-D so you walk up ramps and find yourself looking down two stories into a ravine with a railroad bridge across it and a train running along a river on the bottom. There are one way mirrors that are set up to make the scenes look bigger and yet, you cannot see yourself. There’s a huge concert hall with a gigantic organ in it. He’d collected model trains of all different sizes and they criss-crossed all of the amazing worlds he’d created. All very impressive.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

Yes, that’s two gigantic bridges spanning large crevices’.

Here’s another bridge with Carolyn to provide some perspective. Notice that she’s on a ramp climbing higher and below her is even more model landscapes created by this guy.

It’s not all imaginary Grand Canyons. This man (and he’s made this all by himself and has people helping to do maintenance) has created a large variety of worlds. Everything from the great outdoors to large cities. This picture shows a bit of a juxtaposition of that.

Anyway, it took about 2 hours to get through it all and soak it in. I was completely blown away that such a thing could exist and that it’s basically a labour of love of one man. It’s been around for a few years now and I hope it stays for many more years. Really a nice way to bring out the child in anyone (or just reaffirm the childishness of some of us )

As an American, I take for granted that it’s pretty much illegal to drink alcohol in public places. Most cities will make exceptions: at outdoor festivals, movies and concerts they tend to turn a blind eye to it but you still need to be subtle about it. Here in the UK (and much of the world, for that matter), such rules don’t exist. In London, pick a day and pick a time and you’ll probably see someone with a beer in their hand. Now, Britain certainly has it’s issues with drinking. I don’t know if it’s any worse than the US or if it’s just more out in the open, but there’s a big concern about it and it’s a source of debate.

So, with that as background, our idiot of a new mayor (he only won because the previous one was Labour and people hate the Labour party here almost as much as people in the US hate the Republicans — please please please say they get trounced in November) decided he would attack the scourge of drinking on public transport. I can honestly say I have NEVER seen a single person on public transport making problems while drinking. The assholes are the ones who are way too drunk before they get on that train or bus. I’m sure you could pull out a host of other people with their evidence of people with beers in their hands on the tube harassing people or doing various illegal activities. I know this is not a political blog, but it’s mine so forgive me the occasional rant. And spare me the “well, one time I was on the NXXX bus and saw two people drinking and harassing some other people”. Go to Hoxton on a Friday and count the number of morons who have had too much and tell me if they are still drinking. Or is the problem that they had too much to drink and THEN went out into the public space. This is politics, pure and simple and Boris Johnson wanted to score points. As a result, in the name of some sort of crap along the lines of “making your journey more pleasant” drinking was banned on 1 June 2008.

So, what happened at 11pm on 31st May? Well, a whole lot of chaos. Here are various BBC reports about what happened. Basically, the interwebs allow people to organize way to easily. So they decided to meet on the circle line, which goes in a big circle meaning you could hang out on the train and drink drink drink without reaching the end of any line. Alas, it was a little too successful and became a massive fiasco. Some people had waaaaay too much to drink, property was damaged, transport employees were assaulted, the police overreacted and stations were shut down. But, now that people got that out of their system, drinking is banned on the trains and buses of London.

The real thing that annoys me is that people seemed shocked that this would be a normal reaction to a silly policy going into effect. AND, people seem to point to this as evidence that drinking should have been banned on trains and that supporters of this rule were correct. It was a reaction to the ban, not a reason to ban it. If you don’t ban drinking on trains, it happens in small, easily managable batches. Even worse, now some people are howling to ban drinking in public entirely. I know this doesn’t matter to most people, but I very much enjoy the lack of puritanism in the UK compared to the stuff that seems to pervade the US (at least in this aspect — there’s plenty of silly things in the UK that smack of puritanism). People drink here and, most of the time, no one cares if it’s in a pub, in a park on a nice day, whenever. Yes some people abuse it, but you deal with them, you don’t enact blanket laws and demonize something that many people do whether it’s between 4 walls or in public.

Sorry for the rant. This blog is supposed to be more about mine and Carolyn’s life abroad. Since the worst I normally do is have some beer on my way to a Radiohead concert or in a park, how does this affect me? Not a whole lot. I heard about the whole party happening and decided it was a bad idea. But I had a meek little send off of my own. That night, we’d gone out with Dina and Adrian after seeing the Psycho Buildings exhibit. When it was time to go our separate ways, we picked up some beers and, for the first time, did a little drinking on the public transport. Here would be the evidence:

Boy, aren’t I the rebel? I must say, it was the most public drinking on a bus I’d ever seen. There were probably almost 10 whole people with a beer in their hands. And I’ve been on buses at all hours of the day and night on some of the sillier lines out there. Anyway, thus ends my rant and tribute to public drinking.

Consider the blog to be in catch up mode while all the fun things we’re doing here in jolly old Londontown get added. Updates will be in a haphazard order, but bear with us. Let’s take a look at some cultural fun we partook of about a month ago. Obviously London is chock full of some amazing art, being the capital city of a country with many years of history. However, we chose, on that weekend, to check out a modern art exhibition in the Hayward gallery in the Southbank centre. It’s a section of the south Thames near Waterloo that has been redone as a lot of cultural venues, like museums, theatres, music venues and a long walk along the river of public space for people to enjoy. The Hayward is a particularly severe piece of modern architecture, but I personally enjoyed it’s look.

In the Hayward (until the end of August) is an exhibition called “Pyscho Buildings“. A number of artists were commissioned to come up with various spaces in their own creative ways. Some did smaller scales of larger architecture in unique situations (like a very very large dollhouse version of his apartment block in the US being struck by replica of his old home in Korea. Others were large-scales spaces to explore or take in. For example, a group of artists purchased a number of IKEA “showrooms” (as in they bought all the pieces in a sample room) and then tore much of the pieces apart. The pieces were then put together in a way to give the impression that something had ravaged the house and you were seeing it just as it happened in suspended animation.

It being an art show, they get kind of anal about people taking photos, so it was hard to capture. But one of the more popular ones (there was a line as only 4 people at a time could enjoy it), was by an “Anarchist” art German art collective (it was the most orderly and organized exhibit) who took one of the exterior terraces and built a gigantic pool on it and built some rowboats for people to go out in the pool on. Here are Carolyn and I with the London Eye in the background.

It was a great way to spend at least a few minutes taking in the city from a unique perspective.

Some other exhibits: a gigantic globe being held together using air pressure, a movie theatre that seemed like an homage to David Lynch, the staircase to the artists landlords apartment done in extreme detail made out of sewn silk (and could be folded into a bag), hundreds of dollhouses lit up and placed in a community of sorts, a 100 ft long tunnel made out of aluminum, a room created out of chicken wire and fragile paper, a room that looked like it had been attacked by some sort of unknown creature and a cave like room made out of some sort of woven material. All in all, it created a wonderful series of art pieces. I found the sewn staircase to be the most impressive from aesthetic standpoint. The destroyed apartment dollhouse and the IKEA destruction were also quite impressive. The above links are photos from the Guardian. If you want a visual representation, they show most of them. It was good fun. Carolyn, Dina and I went. Adrian was lame and had to take some class, but we met up with him after and wandered the Thames for a bit before making our way north past Arsenal where we saw all the folks going to the first of a two night Bruce Springsteen concert and had some good Mexican food. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday!

So Radiohead would be up there atop my favourite bands. Over the last 15 years, they’ve played standard guitar-rock and experimented with more esoteric electronic music. Their latest album, In Rainbows, broke new ground in that you bought the digital format directly from the band and you could pay 1p or pay £10000000. The price was up to you. They’ve always impressed me with the musical skills and the ground they’ve broken. I saw them live in 2002 and, when Adrian offered the chance to pick up some tickets, I said yes.

The fun really started on Tuesday, 24 June. Radiohead had two shows in London’s Victoria Park. Dina and Adrian said our ticket was for the first night, Tuesday. So we met up at a convenient point and made our way to the park. After some beers, we tried to enter. They wouldn’t let us in. Looking at this photo, can you tell us what’s wrong with this ticket?

Yes, the actual date of our ticket was for Wednesday, NOT Tuesday. In fact, we had tickets for the following day!

After much merriment, we made the most of it and enjoyed our company. Hopefully this shows us in good spirits (I’m not really pissed off):

Sooo, after some beers on Tuesday, we went our separate ways with a plan in mind to meet up the next day to actually see the band. After making absolutely sure we had our tickets and the right night, we met up tonight to see Radiohead. It was a good performance. Obviously, they are a very popular band and have long passed the point of having shows in intimate clubs, which are typically the ideal location. However, they played a 2+ hour set that spanned the whole range of their impressive career. They played music from all their albums and satisfied everyone. The crowd was bit un-exciting, but it allowed us to roam a bit and take Radiohead in from all angles. Here would be one of them:

The concert, as all good things, had to end. We made our way towards the train and here I am, writing about all of it. I would have to say I’m not the best for concert reviews, but they ended with Paranoid Android from OK Computer and it was absolutely brilliant. Their song selection was excellent and each song was dead on and beautifully performed. I really enjoyed it.

Since I moved here, I’ve been whinging about getting a bike. I loved when I was able to do a bike commute in Chicago. It was faster than all other modes of transport in an urban setting and, you got to see a unique perspective of the world around you and it was a way to be fit while getting somewhere. I’ve been walking a lot in London but it’s amazing that, in an area that is as small as central London, it still felt like it takes 30 minutes to get 1 mile or 5 miles. Anything beyond that is like another world.

Well, bikes, like most things here, aren’t cheap. I wanted a decent used bike that I could ride hard and would still hang on. Alas, I wasn’t sure where to get such a bike. Most places were spiffy cycling shops with bikes of any quality starting at $400. Well, in honour of Bike Week, I stumbled upon a link to second hand bikes and, unlike the previous year, we found a couple that were near us that had a larger selection of bikes. Along with our friends Ben and Gerry, we tramped over to Camden Cycles and we all found what we want. Here’s the one I picked up:

It is an Apollo Jalapeno. Yes, a Jalapeno. It was cheap and will need some work, but I’ve ridden to work 5 of the last 6 work days and gone on rides of various distances on the weekends (more on that later). I’m really loving it. I now truly feel ok with the whole driving-on-the-left and I’m amazed at what a biking city London is. The cars (so far!) are very aware of the cyclists and at any intersection during rush hour, there will be a ton of bikes waiting for the light. The city has taken many through streets and done what they can carve bike lanes on the narrow ancient roads. And my 2 mile commute, which can balloon up to 40 minutes if the buses are running like shit, never takes more than 15 minutes. Next up, I find a bike co-op, get some cheap parts and make my bike a little more durable and reliable!

Hi everyone. Its been a crazy couple of months full of lots of celebrations, travel up and down the east coast, big moves, a new job and a bit of exploring. Matt will be working to catch the blog up on all the events but in the meantime, I thought I would chime in for a bit myself.

You did read correctly, it says “new job” above. It’s true, I have started work as a physiotherapist in London. I have a locum (temporary) position through an agency. I started on June 2nd and am enjoying getting into a routine. I can even walk to work.

In order to take advantage of my final few days without a work schedule, I took a day trip to Canterbury and to Leed’s Castle (some of you may remember Matt’s trip here last year) with a group called London Walks. London Walks organizes all sorts of walking tours in the city covering topics from Parliament and Big Ben to Jack the Ripper. Occasionally they do Explorer Days outside the city and I met up with the group for a chock full day of touring. We travelled by train to our first stop Canterbury. The main attraction here is the Cathedral which is home to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the destination for the pilgrims in Canterbury Tales.

The Cathedral is where the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Beckett, was killed in 1170 after King Henry II complained about his activities. The statue below is a memorial to the site of his assassination by four knights.

After visiting the cathedral, we wandered through town and were educated on many historical events and buildings. We then set out for our next destination, Leeds Castle. Leeds Castle was built in 1119 by one of William the Conqueror’s Lords. It passed into royal hands and was used by many widowed queens after the death of their husbands. King Edward IV gave the castle to a courtier in the 1500s and eventually it passed into private ownership. The castle is now open for tours, conventions, weddings and other special events.

It was jousting day at Leeds Castle so we had sometime to watch the intense competition before exploring the grounds.

It was a nice way to spend my last day as a full-time tourist in the UK.

Ok, let’s shift to something a little more fun while I get back into the swing of things. Our photographer has provided a website with a whole lot of photos they took at the wedding. They did an excellent job. If you have the time, feel free to graze through the many, many photos in this site. And let us know which ones you like. Drum roll please:

Matt and Carolyn’s Official Wedding photos

Carolyn and I might be biased, but we had a blast looking at the excellent photos that provide a great little documentary history of a night that could sometimes be a bit of a blur. It allowed me to really see what was going on (I had no idea my Dad was having so much fun on the dance floor! ).

At about 4:20pm GMT on 3 June 2008, Anna took her last breath. It is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. But she was sick and was just getting worse. Carolyn and I took her to the vet and pet her until the very end. She was a trooper. Words can’t express the sadness and emptiness I feel now. Chewy notices something is amiss. I hope he is healthy and has many more years left in him.

Anyone who has been to my house knew Anna. She was always at the door waiting to greet you. And, the second you sat down, she was in your lap, purring. She was a constant, loving companion and friend to Carolyn and I. She had the chance to travel and explore many homes and meet many other wonderful animals. I will miss waking up in the middle of the night to have her purring contentedly by my side. I hope I was able to provide a life, short as it might have been, that was caring and loving. She will be missed.

Evidence that this was one of the sweetest cats in the world. Rest in peace Annabelle.

Hi. Sorry, I’ve been silent in the past few weeks. My cat, Anna, one of the sweetest animals I’ve ever had the privilege to know, has just been diagnosed with Feline Leukemia. Tomorrow morning, I have to take her to the vet and have her put to sleep. I can’t describe the sadness I’m feeling at the moment. She’s only 6 and all I can hope is that I’ve given her the best life she possibly could.

Regular postings will begin soon enough and they’ll be filled with all the happy things that have been going amidst this sadness.

So Carolyn’s visa came through with no problem. I’m back in the UK and this means that very very soon, Carolyn will be moved here and can look for work and no more distance. Hurray! Very exciting.

In saddening news, I came back to find Anna extremely thin. She’d had problems and some very nice friends had taken her to the vet. She’s seems ok, but she is really really skinny. The vet took some blood and hopefully, they’ll have some news soon. Poor kitty.

So, on 10 May 2008, I married a wonderful woman. Most of you who read this have met Carolyn by now and know she’s pretty darn cool. Allow me to officially introduce you to my (hee hee) wife, Carolyn Hyson:

I’m not sure who that snazzy lookin’ guy is, but I hope she married him

We’re working on getting Carolyn’s visa set up now, but we’ll spend a day or two in NYC to relax while we deal with all sorts of chaos in the meantime and I head back to the UK in less than a week. So many wonderful things going on. Married life so far is going very well. I wouldn’t change a thing.