A typical scene in my life this week:

After our celebrations in Denver, we all travelled down to Arizona to enjoy my parents beautiful home with its spectacular setting and views. Here would be me sitting enjoying a well earned beer before meeting all the nice people my parents have met since moving to AZ. A very relaxing week so far. Alas, we’ve got less than 3 days before we begin our journey back to the UK.

Just a quick note to present to my world Dr. Lisa Badanes. She officially got her PhD in developmental psychology. Carolyn and I are in Denver to celebrate her great achievement. Congratulations Lisa!!

Just a quick note to say hello and, for those of you reading, that I’m still alive. This evening, I’ll be doing a bit of the jetset lifestyle by spending 72 hours in the US. I arrive tonight in Boston around 10pm and then go to CT for Carolyn’s cousin’s graduation (congrats Tony!) and then up to New Hampshire before hopping a plane back to London. It’s been a year since I set foot in the US so I’m looking forward to what’s going to be a fun, but too short trip!

Well, it’s been a bit of a blog drought. I’ve got plenty to write about, but I need to get off my lazy ass and write. Alas, this entry won’t be much more lively. This past weekend, we took a road trip up to Scotland with our main destination being Edinburgh. It was a lovely weekend and a great way to see the country. It’ll be added to the list of things that require a proper write-up. In the meantime, I’m taking the boring photo dump route. Here be a link to all our photos from our trip to Edinburgh:

Well, in an attempt to not lose the blogging momentum, I’ve been back from Greece for less than 24 hours and here I am writing! This will just be a photo dump with a few select photos. In a nutshell, Greece was amazing. Relaxing, beautiful and fun. That sums it up nicely. I’ll have to post multiple things to get it all in since we spent time on 4 islands and Athens. Busy busy. Anyhoo, you can now see all our unedited Greek photos.

The lovely town of Mykonos. In the summer, this place is a mob-scene, but show up a couple weeks early and it’s quite wonderful.

The Caldera, volcanic center and town of Santorini. Yes, the white on the tops of those cliffs is a town and the houses all mostly white and blue. Love this photo. Much more on Santorini to come.

The Temple of Hephaestus in Athens. Not as big as it’s neighbour, the Parthanon that sits atop the acropolis, but it’s more intact. It was a joy to come upon this in the Ancient Greek Market (aka. the Agora).

Yikes! I think that’s a record for longest gap between posts. It’s been a busy busy month and change. Allow me to give you a recap with details later. I’m not guaranteeing too much for the next 10 days as we’re going to Greece in 3 days, but here’s a little to whet your appetite. Since I last posted, we’ve gone skiing in the Alps, enjoyed a nice visit with Carolyn’s parents, taken a cycling trip in Richmond Park, played games, hung out with friends, sung in choirs (for the first time in 4 years), travelled southeast England, celebrated my birthday. For now, let’s start with some evidence of a trip to the Alps:

Behold the Matterhorn as viewed from our hotel in Zermatt. Tres cool. And, since we were in the area:

Proof that not only did I ski, but I did some of it in a blizzard. And we ate lunch in an old farm house on the side of the mountain. Alas, the camera fogged up, so the only picture in there looks like a silly 1970s yuppie picture, but that’ll all come soon enough. So sorry for being so neglectful. I promise tons of fun to follow!

Last week, I made a work trip to Milan. Once I was done with the work part, I stuck around and Carolyn flew down and we had a Valentines weekend together in Italy. Allow me share with you our weekend. If you’d like to see all the photos we’ve taken, here’s a document dump. And if you’d like to see a larger version of any photos below, just click on the photo.

We decided to see about some pretty areas around Milan and settled on Lake Como. It’s a pretty Y-shaped glacial lake nestled up against the Alps. In the summer, it’s a very popular tourist destination and place for the rich and famous to buy villas and show off their wealth. In the winter, it isn’t dead, but it’s not quite the hot spot it is when the weather is warm. To get there requires a train trip, so I’d be remiss not to show you the train shed in the massive, monumental train station. It’s an obvious product of fascist bravado, but it kind of works:

Como is the main town, but you can take a boat up the lake and check out the cute villages that dot the coast line. Check out how nice the lake and surrounding area is:

Note the beautiful alps in the background. Not too shabby.

We took a tour of Torno, one of the cuter villages along the lake. It’s got wonderful winding streets and curves in various directions, affording wonderful spots to sit and soak in the scenario. This is the local church:

We headed back to Como on another boat and wandered the town, eventually having some tasty pizza with a view overlooking the lake and mountains. Then we took a funicular (which is a train that is pulled up a mountain by a bigass cable) to Brunate, a town overlooking Como, where we froze our asses off but got to see this:

(definitely click on this one to see a bigger picture. Nice panorama!)

We had a hotel room in Milan, so we needed to say good bye to Como at some point. Now, this being Valentines Day, you’d think a nice meal was in the cards. While we’d had a lovely meal the night before, I’d also come down with a nasty cold and, by Saturday night, I was a wreck. So we improvised:

A Valentine’s meal fit for a sick man and his wonderful wife.

Our second day, we decided to do some sightseeing in Milan before we had to jet back to London for work. Now, the biggest monument is the Duomo. Take a look and you’ll understand why:

It’s a gigantic, wonderful Gothic church with amazing ornamental work all over the facade. You’re able to climb up to the roof and check out the views as well as the art work up close.

It really is an amazing church. In all my travels to Italy, I’d not yet been to Milan, but I’d been waiting for a long time to see this church in person. It was worth it.

Nearby, through an ornate 19th century version of a mall (man, they were far more attractive places back then) we came upon La Scala, which is one the pre-emminent hotspots for opera, particularly the late Romantic opera of folks like Verdi and Puccini. Now, we came up signs showing we’d missed a concert in the hall by about 30 minutes and pondered trying to just poke our heads in when a nice surprise happened. Two men were replacing the posters outside the opera house for the next show. These are some pretty high quality poster style ads and they were just throwing them out when they replaced them. The got to the one near us and handed it to us instead of throwing it out. A nice memento of our time there!

We finished our time in Milan before an excrutiatingly inefficient trip back to the airport by walking along a district southwest of the Duomo that is centered along a nice canal. It’s not Venice, but it’s pretty.

We found a lovely place for a nice lunch there. I managed to get paparedelle with wild boar sauce. Always a favourite of mine! Alas, it meant it was time to head out. A short time, but fun for the whole family (except for Chewy who was stuck in London! 🙂 ).

mmmm…Guinness

While I was in the midst of my massive change in life (that being living in another country, among other pretty big things), my parents were (and still are) in the middle of a new phase of life. For the first time since the 1970s (or, in my dad’s case, kind of ever), they left the East Coast life and gradually made their way west. First, they made a stop off in Michigan to spend a year living in Michigan, but have made their new roots in a beautiful place in Arizona. Soon, my dad will be retired and it truly begins. But they’ve been a busy couple. And, at the end of the summer, Carolyn and I had the pleasure of their company in London. I always enjoy visitors because, while the tourist stuff is fun, living in a city allows me to find some of the more interesting places to visit. So, they got to see an honest to goodness London neighbourhood, eat at some lesser known, but tasty places and take some day trips of their own choosing. We then decided a weekend trip somewhere new to all of us would be fun and we picked Dublin, having never been to Ireland. Allow me to provide a little writeup below. Selected pictures will come tomorrow.

Now, Ireland is a beautiful country and Dublin is a wonderful city. I feel like it would be a terrific place to live. As a tourist destination, it’s perfect to take in for a day. And that’s how we did it. We used it as a homebase with a lovely hotel right in the center and then took a couple of excellent day trips.  We arrived at night and the natural thing to do was to find a pub. We did well at one right around the corner and, naturally, had ourselves some Guinness. A quick comment on Guinness. In the days before the US had their own little selection of microbrews and beers of some quality, Guinness was what there was to drink if you didn’t want cheap, shitty American lager. So, even if it is just another mass-produced product, it holds a place in my heart, beer lover that I am. So, to be drinking it in it’s “hometown” was a nice little moment. And the pub we first got it in was a lovely one. Busy and full of young professionals in the front, but a nice quiet place for us to chat and enjoy ourselves in the back.

The following morning, we set out to see what Dublin was all about. It’s obviously full of rich history, but much of it had been destoryed over the centuries. So we found a wonderful way to relive it on a walking tour. Carolyn introduced me to these. They tend to be quirky walks through historic parts of cities with people who really know their stuff. Ours was an engaging grad student of history and she knew the history of the city and Ireland in general very well. In the course of our walk, we went right up through modern Ireland and saw things like the location where Bloody Sunday took place as well as the ornate former City Hall. Twas a good step back in time.

Lunch was, of course, in a pub. We found a classy old pub with good hearty food. Now, I know it’s a stereotype, but the Irish seem to like their potatoes. Maybe at home, the do nothing but eat, ummm, tofu, but no matter where we ate, every dish came with potatoes. In fact, I had one or two dishes where it specified potatoes and came with not only those potatoes but some mashed potatoes just to make sure you didn’t miss any potatoes. Potatoes.

But I digress. After an excellent lunch, we made the obligatory pilgrimage to the Guinness brewery. My thoughts on it would best be left to another post, but I went in expecting a pretty corporate tourist attraction and I wasn’t disppointed. But the glimpses of an old brewery and the birthplace of Guinness (and a pint with a 360 degree view of Dublin was nice).

After a good Italian (really) dinner, we had booked a car to drive out to the nearby areas of Dublin. We had a bit of trouble with manual transmission and the car rental place. About 20 miles after picking up the car, it kind of died. The transmission just stopped working. On a hill. At a blind turn. Well, we called the rental place, they came and picked up the shit car and provided us with a second car. My mom did fine for the next leg of our trip, which took us to the Wicklow Mountains. This is a splendid range of mountains south of Dublin and it is dotted with wonderful mountain views and some cute villages Glendalough. It’s a former place for hard core monks to live out their whole vision of austerity for god. But the location is stunning and is full of wonderul walks along a lake as well as some impressive medieval architecture that housed the monks churches. This includes an amazing bell tower that just seems perfectly constructed. Well worth the visit.

Now, amid all this beauty, I would like to come back to driving. Being the child of someone, parents tend to be a little freaked out by their kids driving. Now imagine yourself a parent and your child has just taken the steering wheel of a car on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. And, this is the first time your child has ever driven on that side of the road. Well, that was my driving experience in Dublin. My mom was, umm, ok about it. After a few initial freak outs. Actually, what made it all better was that I was proving more adept at using the manual transmission cars in Ireland as our second car started having issues and we kind of needed to get back to Dublin and I was the only one who could find the sweet spot on the clutch that didn’t cause a horrible burning smell. 🙂

Anyway, we had one more day in Dublin and were debating whether or not to dump the shitty rental car or just drive it into the ground. We smartly chose the latter one (no more talk of the car, it got us to the airport and around the area of north of Dublin without a problem. Obviously due to my excellent driving!). This allowed us to go north and see some evidence of life in the neolithic era in Ireland. That would be Knowth and Newgrange.

Apparently, 3000 years ago, the folks living in the British Isles (among other places), practiced a particular rite of burials. The created earthen mounds where the dead would be placed for a period of time. These burial mounds (well, the entrance to the chambers) tended to face towards the east and were perfectly situated to have the sun enter the chamber directly on the winter solstice (now celebrated as Christmas — cooincidence? Hmmm). Well, there are two particularly big ones about 30 miles north of Dublin. So we piled in the car and made the trip up to take in these two impressive sites.

Now, these are not just big piles of dirt. They were elaborated constructed of massive stones, some of which came from hundreds of miles away and have managed to survive 3000 years. Not only that, but they have found other purposes over the years. The medieval folks around Knowth liked the artificial hill it created because then they could live atop them and, if people came from around the countryside to committ unspeakable acts and destory their lives, they built escape tunnels into the mounds. In Newgrange, the entrance to the burial chamber was discovered and left open for years, which allowed Victorian tourists to go in and leave their mark in the form of graffiti. So in the middle of this 3000 year old place of death, you look to your left and there’s “John Smith, 1865” carved into the rock.

The large paving stones along the bottoms of the mounds had a variety of patterns carved into them that are believe to signify various parts of nature. And the fact that the burial chamber was situated facing east to see the sun rise fit into the naturalist beliefs of the time. In Newgrange, they have a raffle for 20 people to witness the winter solstice in the burial chamber. For those unlucky people who can’t do that, they simulate it while you stand in the chamber. It’s quite powerful.

Among the interesting things about Knowth and Newgrange is the fact that, while people tend visit both, they were excavated and studied by different people. The archeologist at Knowth has done less interpretation and left things unknown when he had no concrete evidence for it. At Newgrange, they attempted to recreate what it might have looked like 3000 years ago. So, while they both found these gleaming white stones that came from very far away, at Knowth, they are left as possibly paving stones, while in Newgrange, they create something of a protective/decorative wall around the mound. There’s a lot unknown about these things and it’s nice to see a variety of opinions about them.

Anyway, after some more exploring of the countryside, we had to make our way back to the airport to return to London. My parents had a few more fun days in town and then they returned to their life in Arizona. It was a pleasure to have them visit and share Ireland with them.

Shortly, I’ll post what I’ve described above in picture form.

A smaller mound near the neolithic mound tombs of Knowth in Ireland.

I’m still catching up and I’ll put up something tomorrow that’s a little more timely, but I’ve many photos from Ireland which Carolyn and I visited with my parents during their visit in September. So, without further ado, here is a photo dump of Ireland.

In an attempt to write about something that didn’t occur 6 months ago, I thought I’d just give a quick rehash of what we did a week ago. We went to Paris. There, now you know how we celebrated our first Christmas as a married couple. 🙂

But seriously folks. We had a blast in Paris. In a nutshell, we rented an apartment, shopped like Parisians, went to midnight mass at Notre Dame, ate Chinese food on Christmas eve (nothing was open), made a homecooked meal with a Christmas duck and saw a whole lot of Paris.

Soon enough, I’ll give a full account. But for now, here’s a photo dump of all our Paris photos. Enjoy!

As promised, here is a sampling of the many pictures we took while in the Lake District. If you want more, we’ve got them right here.

This is Grassmoor House, the B and B we stayed at in Keswick. Note the slate exterior. Using it on the buildings was quite common and provided a cool look.

A mountain cloaked in heather. This was prime season for heather in bloom. Beautiful!

Two bad asses near the top of Skiddaw. Look at the view behind us.

We took the hard path down. It was a blast, but you sometimes needed to slow yourself down lest you go barrelling headfirst on a path of sharp slate.

This was our view from a pub we stopped at and had a few pints and played some games.

Matt amongst the boulders. This was in a mountain pass south of Keswick with a one lane road in and out of it. And cars were going in both directions. Crazy. From there we drove amongst a number of cute old villages that now cater to the tourists with pubs and ice cream.

There’re a few more photos I might post with commentary. I feel like I’m missing pieces of the trip in this selection. 🙂

A view of Derwent Water from the top of Skiddaw (for a whole complement of pictures, view the Lake District album).

So, in my attempts to catch up with a whole back log of writing, I’m going to take you back to the summer. This will be a text heavy write up. Tomorrow, I’ll post a selection of pictures.

After our lovely trip to Ludlow, we weren’t done travelling for the summer by a long shot. Carolyn’s friend, Angela, was in town to visit the homeland of her boyfriend, Nick. We decided it would be a blast to travel north to the Lake District to enjoy the natural beauty it had to offer. We chose Keswick, a town in the northern part of the area, as our base of operations. Since everyone travels on bank holidays, we had a fun time getting up there. I arrived at Euston first and there were major lines to pick up tickets. On top of that, we weren’t allowed to book a seat, so we were at the mercy of the mob. When Carolyn showed up, we got some food and, just as we walked out of the food court, the track for our train was announced. The surging mob shifted towards it and then some people started sprinting to the train. Clearly, we weren’t the only people without a seat. Somehow, we not only got a seat, but in a first class cabin converted to coach for this trip. Sweet!
Now, there are mostly small towns in the thick of the beautiful hills and lakes that make up the Lake District and they tend to thrive off tourism. So, basically, every house is a B and B (the predominent mode of lodging). I’ve always been skeptical of them, but my travels from this point on have made me soften to them. We stayed in Grassmoor House. If you’re going to be visiting Keswick, I can whole-heartedly recommend them. Lovely rooms, great, filling breakfasts and a friendly couple running the place.

Now, one of the more fun things to do in the Lake District is to just take a walk. But this is a walk in the British sense. That means a nice hike up and down hills. We chose, for our first days hike, Skiddaw, which is about 3000 feet high and an 8 mile walk round trip from town. We teamed up with Melanie, a friend of Carolyn’s from childhood who was living up here (her family is British and spent a few years in NJ during Melanie and Carolyn’s youth). It has a nice path up to the top, but it’s still quite a bit of effort to ascend it. It also afforded some breathtaking scenes of the area, including the one above. We scrambled down the more treacherous path to come back and for those of us not in the best of shape, we beat ourselves up nicely. After a few pints and a some curry, it was time for bed.

We decided to be a little more relaxed on our second day. Angela and Nick had rented a car, so we had a change to check out the surrounding area. We started with the only Pencil Museum in the world (Keswick being the home of a pencil factory). Then we went back in time to Caselrigg, a well intact stone circle (like Stonehenge). It was a lovely spot, but people perching about on 3000 year old stone formations was a little annoying.

We then took a driving tour of the area. We had a roast at a nice country pub and drove along Derwent Water and over an amazing mountain pass. This area is such an amazing array of varying natural beauty. There are many lakes (although only one is officially a lake) surrounded by mountains with town nestled in the valleys. It was such a joy to spend a few days out of the city and amongst nature.

We concluded our trip with a road trip and a short stint in Birmingham. Twas a lovely trip.

So the two monumental buildings in Ludlow are its church and castle. Both are the center of the reason for Ludlow’s existence. As it was an administrative center and then social center of the region, there was much money flowing around. And, this being a time where religion was one of the foci of life, it was common for wealthy people to show their devotion by giving money to the church. It’s still done today, but not nearly on the scale as the Middle Ages and Early Modern Europe. As a result, a town the size of Ludlow is able to have a church like this:

Here’s what it looks like from the interior:

Quite large for what is now a small rural market town. That big bell tower can be walked up, which we naturally did. We accidentally timed it for the noon bells which were quite lovely to listen to from above them. Now, I used to have a lot of fear about heights. As I got older, I overcame most of my fears, which one exception: spiral staircases. Alas, they usually lead to some pretty nice places, so I always go up them, but by the end, I’m usually sweating and completely freaked out. This was no exception. Keeping in mind that I’m not a small person, look at Carolyn as she’s about to descend to earth again.

Small and you have no idea where the end is until you fall down them and die or make it on your own two feet. 🙂

From the top of the bell tower, you can catch a glimpse of the other monumental building in Ludlow, the castle:

The castle was originally a Norman garrison for the nobleman that William the Conqueror chose to lord of the land in order to keep control of the newly conquered island. It expanded over the years until Ludlow was controlling the Marches and Wales. As Ludlow declined in importance, the castle feel into decay. However, castles that end up as ruins can be the most fun to explore. This one was quite impressive. It wasn’t a complete shell of a building which meant there were tons of corners and rooms to explore. And the owners of the castle have left it all quite accessible. I enjoyed it so much, I took about 70 photos just of it. And here they all are!! I mean, here is a small sampling of them.

Here is the main exterior of the castle. It’s perched on a cliff above the river (and Mr. Underhils) so it was well placed to ward off any attacks.

This is a view from inside the castle itself. The cool round building was a Norman chapel. It was possible to check out all those rooms off the inner courtyard.

So, now you know that Ludlow exists and that it has some beautiful places to stay and eat. But what about the town itself? Well, while we were there, we took a walking tour with a local architectural and historical society and there was much to be learned. Ludlow is a border town. It’s in a region called the Marches which essentially means a border. This would be the Welsh border and, when the UK absorbed Wales in the 15th Century, an administrative body call the Council of the Marches was set up and Ludlow was the administrative centre. Originally just a castle, Ludlow was suddenly something of a capital now and a town sprang up around it. It is also a market town, meaning people from the country sides came in weekly to buy and sell goods in a central location.

In the 17th Century, the Council of the Marches was abolished, but Ludlow survived by being a fashionable market town and, since it took 27 hours to get to London from Ludlow at the time, it retained an air of cosmopolitanism. However, with the arrival of the train in the 19th century, which connected the far-flung (relatively) reaches of Britain, Ludlow began a quick and steady decline. If it helps, you can now get from Ludlow to London in 3 hours.

Now, the decline of any place is not a good thing, but in this case, there’s a silver lining. While much of old England got torn down in the mid-20th century and was replaced by some horrible modernist concrete architecture (some of it by choice, some because the Germans bombed the shit out of many English cities), Ludlow laid forgotten. And this meant that a slice of English architectural history was perserved so, when the preservation movement sprung up, there was a town with 400 examples of English Architecture. Half-timbered buildings are all over the place and a gigantic cathedral towers over it all, a sign of the former power and money that used to flow into this small market town. Let’s take a look.

The Feather’s Hotel is a classic, and Ludlow’s most elegant example of the half-timbered building. A timbered frame is erected and the gaps in the timber are filled with things like mud or, later on, concrete. Typically, the white parts you see were likely painted with some color and not white. The wood is oak which, when cut is still quite soft, but then hardens quickly and perserves very nicely.

Ludlow from above. The green and white striped tents are the market, which still is around today, 3-5 days a week. And people still come into to town to do their weekly shopping. Note the edge of the castle in the background (much more on that later).

One of the best grouping of old buildings. Note the large large bell tower of the church behind it.

Another view of Ludlow from the bell tower and some more examples of half-timbered buildings.

Next, I’ll show more of the church, the river Teme and the castle.