Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Grand Finale

I decided to round out my 21 days of freedom from the airline with a quick trip to Austin, TX. I was very lucky last summer because Jenny, one of my best friends, whom I have known since freshman advising in the summer of 1994, and her family relocated to Austin from Alabama. Now instead of an hour and a half flight and a one hour car drive, they are now just 31 minutes by plane.

I left on Sunday afternoon and stayed thru today, Tuesday. We always have fun and most of the time the visit revolves around eating. I always joke that it is a good thing that Jon, her husband, did not get a job in Dallas or we would all be in elastic pants! We had some birthday cake leftover for Jenny's thirty-something birthday the week before. I have given up chocolate for Lent, but the cake was cinnamon, so my lucky day, huh? We spent the rather warm afternoon washing the family car and hanging out outside.



We had Papa Murphy's that first night. You pick up your pizza and then take it home and bake it. After a heavy gorging, Matthew, their little boy (he calls me Uncle Ron, how adorable) went to sleep, and we watched the DVR'd episode of SNL, the first new one since the Writer's strike ended! Very funny, including the parody commercial "Annuale" (http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/#mea=221774). I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants.

I slept like a log that night thanks to some lingering jet lag and some OTC sleeping pills.
My days in Austin are pretty much always the same:
1. wake up at precisely 8:30am
2. eat breakfast
3. play with Matthew for a while
4. take a shower
5. we go somewhere for lunch
6. we all go home and Matthew and I take a nap.
7. we play some more
8. Jon comes home from work
9. we eat dinner
10. we play some more
11. Matthew goes to sleep
12. we watch TV
13. we all go to sleep.

It may be routine, but it is enjoyable. I enjoy the nap part the most since I am not used to a very active three year old with a lot of energy.
For lunch on Monday we went to Red Lobster. It's kind of been our tradition for a while because Jon doesn't eat seafood, or as he says, anything that comes from the water, so my visits are an excuse for Jenny and I to go eat some ocean dwelling creatures.

The highlight of lunch was when the hostess took a lobster out of the tank for Matthew. He was all about the lobster until she actually took it out of the tank, and then he turned a little chicken, and would not go near it, as evident in the photo.



After the Monday nap, we went to a local park and played. I got to swing, and attempted some creative shots with the camera.



For dinner that night we had "Mustgo" as in everything must go! Leftovers and some homemade fried rice that Jenny made. After Matthew went to bed we devoured some more cake and watched Dirty Jobs, the show where Mike Rowe is always doing something that involves mud, poop, or both.

Today, Tuesday was the last day of the visit. For lunch we met Jon at Cannoli Joe's, this sort of all you can eat Italian restaurant. I ate a bunch, but had to tone it down for dessert since most of the options included chocolate.

The flight home was uneventful and now I have the next 6 days off to enjoy the end of my vacation.

The Finale

We started our last day in London like all the others. We went downstairs and had our enormous breakfast and then headed for the Tube. We rode the subway to Baker Street and went to the world famous Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum (http://www.madame-tussauds.co.uk/)

We got to "meet" lots of famous people. I think the highlight for sister was meeting David Beckham, the soccer dude who is married to Posh spice. I got to see Christina Aguilera's back tat.


Part of the whole experience was this part of the attraction called "Chamber Live" and it kind of freaked us out because they had live actors going through was was supposed to be a dungeon and they would jump out and scare you. I made my sister go ahead of me so she would get the brunt of everything. I am such a wonderful brother.

After leaving Madame Tussaud's we rode the tube to Kensington Park. We walked thru the park and saw the palace where the late Diana lived. Kensington Park merges into Hyde Park. They have a trail called the Flower Walk, but this time of year there was not much blooming. I imagine it looks much better in the springtime. We stopped at the Prince Albert Memorial, which is directly in front of Royal Albert Hall. Jennifer was starting to complain again about her feet hurting her. I guess her world famous Uggs weren't as supportive as we thought.




We ended up at the bottom of Hyde Park near Knightsbridge and made our way to Harrods (http://www.harrods.com/). It was one of the places that was on the top of Jen's list.

Our plan was to eat in the Food Hall at Harrods, but it was a bit too pricey for the commoners that we are, so we did our shopping, saw the cheesy memorials to Dodi and Diana, and then went across the street to a little French cafe that had a fixed menu lunch (which still cost about $50).



The service was terrible and slow, but while we were waiting for our food, we managed to miss the one rain storm that came during our trip.



We finally finished up at the restaurant and made our way over to Trafalgar Square to get some pictures, although it had started to get a little dark. We then made our way up to Covent Garden and did some last minute souvenir and gift shopping. As we were leaving we saw a pretty cool street performer who had himself locked and chained to a ladder then managed to "escape". It got a little lame in the end because he kept mentioning that we should leave him money.


We were pretty much exhausted by this point, and we made our way wearily back to the hotel. Jen was not hungry since we had such a late lunch, so I stopped at a bakery and got a quiche and a little bottle of wine for myself.

We did most of our packing that night because we had an early morning on Friday. The alarm went off at 5:15am (that would be 11:15pm CST) and we showered and finished packing. We went down to the restaurant for breakfast at 6:30, and by 7 we were checked out and on our way to Victoria station in a cab. We caught the 7:30 train to Gatwick. My airline's flight at 10 was quite full. The premium cabins were full and coach was heavy. I had pre-purchased two ZED (Zonal Employee Discount) tickets before we left home on British Airways, and since their flight was wide open, we took them instead. They did upgrade us to World Traveler Plus, which is their premium cabin, although it was a far cry from our lie-flat beds on the way over. With headwinds and some diversion, it took over 10 hours to get home, which made Jen a little antsy. I managed to sustain myself with wine and gin and tonics!


It was a great trip, and I think that my sister had a good time. The major downfall being the strength of the pound.

Cheers!

P.S. to Part Two

Forgot to mention that after the pub, we were a little loopy, so we stopped at Tesco and picked up a couple of "40's". Sister got a Heinekin and I got a Tiger (I discovered Tiger beer during previous travels in SE Asia). We got back to the hotel and continued to enjoy our adult beverages!

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Cheers Mate! (Part Two)

After a sound sleep, we woke up for day two of our trip. A buffet breakfast was included in our room rate, so we gorged ourselves with as much food as possible. The Pound Sterling is so strong that it blows the U.S. Dollar right out of the water, so we thought we would load up on as much food as we could since it was "free". We took the tube down to Tower Bridge tube stop and went to the London Dungeon (http://www.thedungeons.com/). It's kind of touristy, but it is a neat, multi-media attraction that gives you an idea about the darker side, the seedier side of London. The queue for that was kind of long, so we waited about an hour before we could get into the attraction. There were these obnoxious "east-ender" kids behind us in line, but once we got into the attraction we kind of skipped ahead of them.


After leaving the Dungeon, we took the tube to Waterloo station and headed towards the London Eye (http://thelondoneye.com/). It's kind of like a huge Ferris wheel that gives you a fantastic view of the city in all directions. It's situated just off the Thames. To make a complete circle, it takes about an hour.


When we were done we headed to a place called Cafe Manga and had panini sandwiches for lunch. My sister had realized that European coffee is too strong for her so she decided to stick with Coca-Cola for her caffeine fix.
Next we headed over the Thames towards Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. At this point my sister, the one who works out every day, began to notice her feet where starting to hurt. She wanted to walk around in her Uggs, these boots that are very trendy at the moment. Looking back this might not have been the best idea, as it did not offer the support of a running shoe. She accused me of trying to make her die of tiredness. Next to the Abbey were all these protesters, including one man who appeared to be supporting North Korea.



We walked thru St. James Park towards Buckingham Palace. The parks in London are phenomenal. It was Jennie's favorite part of our trip. There were all these ducks and squirrels everywhere and this one man was walking around feeding them peanuts by hand. We called him the male Snow White. He offered some to Jennie, so she was able to feed the geese. She was concerned about this one goose who was separated from the rest by a small fence and tried to get me to help her lift him over. Like that was going to happen!



Next we stopped at Buckingham Palace. The flag was raised, which means the Queen was in-residence, but she did not come to out to see us. Jennie kept getting frustrated because her camera was kind of ghetto (it went thru batteries so fast) and had a five second pause before it took the picture, and people kept walking into her photos while she was trying to take them. I thought it was kind of funny.

Green Park is situated next to the palace, so we headed thru that. There is a great fountain/monument from Canada that pays tribute to all the Canadians and British who died during WWI and WWII. It has maple leafs etched into the marble.



We hopped onto the tube at Green Park and rode down to Picadilly Circus, the equivalent of Time Square for London, then made our way to Trafalgar Square. It was getting too dark to take pictures, so we decided we would head back the next day.

We stopped at a pub called The Castle that was by our hotel and had a pint before retiring for the evening.

London Calling (Part One)

Just returned from a few days in London. It's a fantastic city, and layovers there are the thing I miss about not flying long-haul flights anymore. I took my sister with me. This was her first trip to the U.K. so she was very excited. Our flight over was uneventful. We were able to get First Class seats on the outbound. My airline offers a great product in First. You have your own kind of pod, and you can convert your seat into a fully flat bed. My friend Sandy was working in the cabin on our flight over. The whole crew was great and our trip over the pond was uneventful.



We decided on the way over that we would hit the ground running after we arrived. We did not want to lose the first day sleeping. We landed in London, passed thru HMS Customs and Immigration and took the train to Victoria Station in central London. We took the standard little black London cab to our hotel. We stayed at the Hilton Kensington, near Holland Park.



Thankfully they had a room available for us when we checked in at noon. I was afraid that we would have to wait until the 3pm check-in time. After we showered up, we hit the tube and went to the Tower of London. It was the one thing I had never done on previous trips. We spent a few hours walking around the area. We got to see the Crown Jewels and the various towers were notable folks were held until they were usually hung, drawn, and quartered. The most notable "apartment" was the one used by Sir Walter Raleigh.


There were these huge pigeons everywhere and they would fly off right in front of you, right in your face. It made my sister scream a few times.


Around sunset, we took the tube back to our hotel. Dinner was included the first night, so we had supper and then headed out to the Apollo Victoria Theatre to see the musical Wicked. It's based on a book, kind of the story behind the Wicked Witch of the West and how she became so "Wicked". The singers/performers were great and it was a fantastic show.

We headed back to the hotel around 11pm, at which point we were walking zombies. We had been awake for what seemed like forever. However, as soon we were arrived back at the hotel, we got a second wind and stopped in the hotel bar for a pint. After we got back up to the room, we took Ambien and went right to sleep.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Walking In Memphis

Got a Las Vegas all-night turn on Ash Wednesday (I am giving up chocolate for Lent by the way). The folks on the flight home looked like they were addicted to crystal meth. I got home and was alseep by 7:30am and slept soundly until about 2:30 or so.


I had plans that night to attend the donor council meeting at the blood bank, when much to my surprise, the phone rings at 5:30pm. It's the airline's scheduling desk letting me know I am going back out that night on a two day trip. It wasn't so bad really, just one leg to Memphis and a nice layover.

I was actually pleased to get a MEM overnight because I would get a chance to go to Huey's (see reference in Montreal post) and have a fantastic burger and onion rings so good they could invoke a religious experience. Check out their website (http://www.hueyburger.com/)


I called my friend Leanne. She is a co-worker of mine who commutes from MEM. I knew she was out of work for several weeks since she had her foot in a cast (plantars fasciatis treatment) so I called her up and invited her to meet me for lunch at Huey's.

We walked, or rather I walked and Leanne hobbled, the two blocks from the hotel down to the restaurant. Luckily we beat the lunch crowd and were seated right away. It filled up pretty quickly after us.

I ordered the Senor Huey burger (a mexican twist on the original) and Leanne had the Huey Club and of course we both got the onion rings. I wanted to buy a Huey's T-shirt but they did not have the one I wanted in my size.

On the way back to the hotel, we passed the Peabody Hotel. We went into the lobby and saw the world famous ducks. There is a duck there with just one leg. You can read more about the history of the Peabody ducks at (http://www.peabodymemphis.com/peabody_hotels/the_peabody_ducks.cfm)


Just one more reserve day and I am on vacation for the rest of the month! Not much going on from here on out, with the exception of my planned trip to London with my sister Jennie.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Montreal

Well February starts a reserve month for me and I HATE reserve. At midnight they called me with a 5am sign in... not real happy, but I did manage a 24 hour layover in Montreal. It was snowing like crazy as some sort of front was moving into Quebec province.

We arrived in the afternoon and went to this place called Dunn's. (www.dunnsfamous.com) It is famous for its smoked meat. I had a corned beef sandwhich and some onion rings that were better than any I have tasted save for Huey's in Memphis. Our waiter was this French Canadian dude named Mark who had just quit smoking. Glenna, one of my co-workers is a french speaker and flies Montreal all the time and she said he was real cranky last week (that's explains the quitting smoking). He spilled my gin and tonic because he said I was left handed and that threw him off (whatever that means).



After dinner we walked back to the hotel past the basilica, but the picture I took was too dark otherwise I would post it here. It was so cold. Steph, my other co-worker and I went to the hotel bar and she had wine and I had a class of port (Graham's Tawney). The waitress was slow as molasses and not real nice and at the end of the evening she said "Merci ladies" so I was like, maybe I should drop trouser and let her know she was wrong (I was tipsey that this point).

I spent today walking down Ste. Catherine St. (see picture above). I ate at this place called Mike's and the waitress was kind of a snob and came over and started speaking to me in French, which I did not understand, so then she tried english, but I replied in Spanish and then she was nice to me.... go figure. I had a pizza that was shaped like a star and some cholocate ice cream, (I plan on giving chocolate up for lent, so I need to indulge now). It was snowing so hard, I fell twice on the way back to my hotel...once on my knee and once on my bum. People saw me so I was really embarrased.

The flight from Montreal to Miami was horrible. The passengers sucked the life force out of me. They are nice, but at the same time so demanding, I thought I would have a nervous breakdown.

I just have one more day of reserve, then off for two days, and then four days on before vacation starts. I can't wait!