Poznan

Way back in June, we had the good fortune to visit Poznan for a wedding. This was the first trip to Poland for either of us and it was awesome. Poznan itself is an interesting mix of old and new, bare and bustle. The people were incredibly friendly and kind. The center of town was absolutely charming. The food everywhere was absolutely fantastic.

The wedding was at Cathedral Island, the oldest cathedral in Poland. It was friends we met from my beloved’s masters program at UCL: he’s Polish and she’s Japanese. The plan is for a Catholic wedding in Poland to be followed by a Shinto wedding in Japan several weeks later.

Unfortunately, due to a clash with the yet-to-be named caravan holiday (motorhome vacation) in July, we are not able to attend the Shinto wedding (but not to fear, we will make it to Japan eventually). More on the caravan holiday in the not too distant future… The bride impressed everyone with her reciting her vows in Polish.

The reception had a refreshingly unchoreographed feel to it compared to the typical US weddings we are more accustomed to. After the wedding, we all just hung around outside the church as everyone just kind of talked. Almost everyone brought flowers , and this is when you gave the flowers and your gift to the bride and groom. Various members of the family dutifully carried the bootie to a waiting car so that everyone at the wedding was now unencumbered of gifts and flowers.

Next, we all jump onto two buses that had been arranged to a castle for the reception. It was about an hours drive out of the city through farmland. The castle was literally in the middle of nowhere. We all gathered outside the front door waiting for the bride and groom to arrive and the staff served us all a glass of bubbly. More hanging out, talking, and singing… yes, singing. At various moments the entire wedding broke into Polish song. It was awesome.

When the bride and groom arrived, the fathers each made a lovely speech and the mother of the groom presented the bride with a loaf of rustic looking bread on a platter, which the bride broke into with her fingers and then the groom. After that they each drank a flute of champagne, turned theirs backs to us and hucked the flutes into the air which landed in the centre of the semi circle we were standing in and smashed into a million pieces on the brick paving stone, which brought cheers from the crowd… And on par with the rest of our Poznan experience, the food was delicious and the people were fantastic. What an exquisite place Poznan is, and what a magical wedding it was!

For more pictures of beautiful Poznan and gorgeous Zakrzewo Castle: Click Here.

Loos of London

Just when you thought this blog couldn’t descend any lower… The inspiration came from Anniversary weekend. We were at the Prince Charles Cinema and of course I went to the loo… and this is what I found:

I know… a Kevin Smith cubicle! Awesome! But it gets better… inside there is an homage to Kevin Smith …

…and a picture of him standing in front of the cubicle. According my extensive internet research (0.29 second on Google), ‘steeev’ on flickr says "In April 2007 the cinema opened an official Kevin Smith toilet cubicle, after the cult director held a Q&A at the cinema, he is quoted as saying "I don't know, Quentin Tarantino has never turned up here and they name the bar after him, it's my second visit and they haven't even named a toilet after me!" The next day they screwed a framed a picture of him to the first cubicle in the gents and he officially opened the toilet."

Here’s me in roughly the same spot, apparently I am a bit taller. The only thing that could have made it better would be some kind of proof that he used it!

Keeping It Gay

I never imagined that we could ever top the theme of our eighth wedding anniversary, “The Ocho: Just can’t get enough of it”, but a worthy contender came from my mother by way of a hand written note in the anniversary card she sent us. So this year’s theme became “Keeping It Gay”.

This year’s anniversary weekend celebration included a trip to the Prince Charles Cinema. It is a cute little cinema ala Cable Car and Avon. It is like having your own private cinema screening room like the ones ridiculously rich people have. The ceiling in the upstairs cinema has a random scattering of little lights reminiscent of a rural night sky and right before the film starts neon accent lighting on the walls slowly transforms from one colour to another that suggest you are viewing the world from inside a string of Christmas lights.

We saw A Single Man, which featured several nude bottom scenes of Colin Firth, earning him a BAFTA, a Volpi, and a Golden Globe… perhaps making it a contender for the most decorated nude male bottom in British history. Call me old fashioned, but I would much rather get lost in the locks of a young Hugh Grant… but I have vowed never again to be distracted by that supernatural hair. Still, Firth’s bottom is well worth the price of admission.

My American friends may not be aware that ordering film popcorn in the UK comes with this question: “Sweet or Salted?” My myopic mind just would not allow me to conceive of watching a film with anything but the butter-and-salt soaked snack of my youth. But the Prince Charles tricked me into it because they serve an unannounced mix of sweet and salted. The combination invaded my mouth with no warning. Perhaps I was still heady from all the Firth butt, I fell hard for this delectable combination. Each reach into the eats had the anticipatory tease of not being quite sure which one you would get, making each bite just like the first: munched for the very first time…. Mmm.

The next day we treated ourselves to dinner and a ballet. Dinner was at Sophies Steakhouse. I have to admit that British beef mystifies me. I don’t know what unnatural process results in the tender, flavourful steaks back home but I have yet to experience a steak here whether in a restaurant or from the grocer that is not a mandible workout. Some of them have tasted good, but I am just not used to working that hard. The samples of my wifes steak, however, chewed with ease…ahhh. And my salmon was devine. Yum.

I am ashamed to admit that this is my first trip to the ballet in London. My wife on the other hand has seen several. We went to see Royal Ballet at Covent Garden (when a dancer says Covent Garden, they mean the Royal Opera House, not the market). We had the perfect seats. Ironically, Sarah Lamb who had her start at Boston Ballet danced Cinderella. She is beautifully crisp and clean. There is something I am not grasping about the Royal Ballet attitude line that to my eye looks turned in: the only one not doing it was Sarah. But I loved all of the ladies doing the ‘seasons’ variations and Prince, his friends, and the Jester were also fantastic. Sorry to the stepsisters, nothing personal, you did a wonderful job, but I never liked that role in the ballet. The corp was excellent and the Ashton choreography still feels relevant, although I wasn't raised on it. A wonderful finale to anniversary weekend.

During this weekend, I had some very interesting bathroom experiences at all three of these venues. But I am going to have to save that for another blog entry…perhaps.

Photo Credits

Keep It Gay

Prince Charles Cinema

A Single Man

Sophies Steakhouse

Royal Opera House

Fredrick Ashton

No Pictures Please

Last Tuesday (20 April 2010) night I had a bit of a beard trimming fiasco. I pulled out my trimmer stuff as usual and decided that I needed to oil the blades so I removed the guard and oiled them. I cleaned off the oil and any residual hair went back to the mirror and took a pass. A whole bunch of hair came off. As I watched the clump hit the floor, I was thinking that it was a bit more than usual. It must have been a while since… oh no, I forgot to put the guard back on! So I look up at the mirror and there is this blank spot where I had made a single pass with the trimmer. Hmmm, I don’t want to shave it off and start over. So I decide to just do a swipe on the other side to see if I can make it match. That was relatively successful. When my beloved gets home, the look says it all. No good. But I decide to stick with it anyway. I go into work the next day and no one says anything. Now I am intrigued. This is a challenge now because I have several coworkers and client who like to take the mick out of me (give me a hard time). How long will it take before someone says anything? And can I make it until it grow with no one saying anything? Thursday, again, nothing. Finally, Friday at around 2, I am in the engineering workshop and the engineer says something. I made it half way. It was bad, but not as bad as any of these.

Photo Credits:

forum.calgarypuck.com

glennlist.com

studionemo.com

dailytelegraph.com.au

Good Friday in Chicago

I spent most of yesterday shopping. It is funny how two years in London has changed my perspective. I am in one of the biggest cities in the US and wow… everything seems so incredibly cheap. In the midst of my shopping I stumbled upon Berghoff’s Restaurant. It was apparent that this place WAS something… just look at the sign. I later learned that it had closed and reopened, so it is no longer what it was. The portabello sandwich was good… and the homemade crisps (potato chips) LOOKED awesome… but unfortunately lacked any taste whatsoever… and some of them were quite rubbery. The Berghoffs apparently were brewers back in the day and they had a selection of beers, which I later learned are of the Dortmunder-style. I had the dark. I have apparently become a real/cask-ale snob because this stuff tasted like it had added carbonation and it had that mass-produced kind of flavour. I mean it any beats any of big piss-water makers (Budweiser, Millers, Coors, etc) hands down. But that’s about it. Staff was nice and friendly, but after living in London, I might have low standards for customer service. It was amusing watching the Chicagoans huff off out of the T-Mobile shop (store) after having to wait in a queue (line) more than a few minutes when I was getting my phone topped up (refilled).

Last night, the Shakespeare Association of America had an event at the Chicago Cultural Center, which is an old library. It was absolutely GORGEOUS inside. This morning, I am in search of a place called West Eggs Cafe in a few minutes. Then I am off to St Chrysostom’s for something called The Three Hours. Tomorrow after the conference, we are off to the Art Institute, where the Seurat hangs. Then its off to the floods of New England.

All Photos from Wikipedia.

Preparing to Visit my Homeland

This weekend, I am doing all those little things I like to do before going to the US. Today I am cutting my hair and organizing my computer stuff in case I don’t have easy access to the Internet. Later today I am going to experiment getting my travel files onto a USB stick so that I don’t have to take the MyBook with me. That will lighten my load quite a bit. I am planning on taking My Beloved to see her favourite painting: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. On Good Friday, I am hoping to find an Episcopal Church in Chicago doing a Seven Last Words service like they do at Grace, which is my favourite church service.

Another thing that I have to do is brace myself for anger and hatred directed at me by way of radio and television. In the recent and not so recent past, I have allowed myself to get sucked into the vitriol that passes for political discourse. The thickness of my skin has definitely declined living in London because there is not a constant attacking of my value system going on in the media here. It is funny that I didn’t notice it when it disappeared, but boy do I notice it when it returns… and it is a quite a shock.

I used to think that I had no problem with Limbaugh and his ever-expanding flock of imitators either fuming with rage or working their listeners into anger. What I thought I had a problem with was when someone close to me, someone whom I liked and respected would start applying inaccurate, disingenuous, and sometimes hurtful labels on to my values system. But I have been fooling myself.

I realise now that the problem is within me. I can wish for a world where we can listen to each other’s wishes to make the greatest nation on earth even better calmly and rationally. We would see why the other side has their view, maybe agree to disagree, maybe compromise to let each other have a little bit of what we want. But that would truly be a wasted wish. A much better use for such a wish would be to wish for a world without disease, ignorance, war, fear, anger or hatred.

As far as I can tell, a single wish or prayer will not wipe out all the suffering in the world. But I believe that one prayer can wipe out one instance. It is interesting that even Jesus did not wipe out all leprosy or all blindness: he just wiped out one instance of it at a time. And there is a lesson in that for me.

So here is what I hope to do from now on. I hope to remember that behind that fear, anger, and hatred, there is actually hidden behind it somewhere a message of good intention. The ones delivering the message have a good reason for delivering it in this way. Perhaps it is easier to manipulate emotions than to make a logical argument. Perhaps the emotional appeal is more entertaining. Perhaps it is intended to trigger an emotional response from the opposition so as to make them look unreasonable. Perhaps the deliverer lacks the skill to present a reasoned argument instead of an emotional one.

Luckily for me, I am blessed with friends and family that have strong political preferences for the both flavours available in American politics. The only thing I ask of either side to consider is: if anyone has made it this far into this entry is this: when someone is telling you what someone else believes in, don’t just take his or her word for it. Consider that the position may be misrepresented or exaggerated to elicit a response. In the meantime, I will do my part and try to remain calm in the face of anger or misrepresentation. Like all challenges, this is just another opportunity for me to grow.

If all my friends and family moved to London tomorrow, I could live a pretty good life here. But I would still miss my homeland. I miss innately understanding the culture. I miss the mix of people, the mix of cuisines. I miss the just knowing stuff that most people around me just know. I miss my career, customer service, NASCAR, and CarTalk. Living outside my country has shown me that I love it even more than I thought I did. Sometimes I miss it so much that visiting is downright painful. It just means having to leave it behind yet again. But despite the din of anger on the airwaves, there is no place I would rather live than the United State of America.

Photo Credits:

Sunday Afternoon

Rush

Jesus Heals a Leper

Considering Head

Barack Ray and Tom

Flag

Sandwich King

At work, I am known as The Sandwich King. It is a triple decker. It evolved from my making two sandwiches and putting them in a single baggie, which I just peel back while eating it. At some point I realised that since I was not taking the sandwiches out, I could load up the condiments and other various juices from the sandwich ingredients on the middle two slices. This has two advantages: 1 it maximises the flavour of the drippings and bread, and 2 the outer slices do not disintegrate. Having had a sandwich or two here in London, I can tell you that the typical London sandwich is bone dry. There seems to be a fear of soggy bread. Maybe it is the same at home too and I just always ate at soggy sandwich places, but I can say that I always loved the flavours of ingredients mixing together and getting absorbed into and mixing up with the bread… yum!

I am not comfortable with the title Sandwich King. I find the ones who care about titles are often lacking in actual skill and thus are totally reliant upon the title for a sense of distinction. But it is not that. Perhaps my American roots give me a mistrust of monarchs? No it isn’t quite that. For me, I think it is the basic rut that my sandwich has become. Except for whatever is the cheap fruit that week at the market, my sandwich is basically the same.

Immediately interior to the two outer most slices are layers of lettuce, which shield them from disintegration. The lettuce is stuck onto the interior slices with an adhesive layer of Dijon mustard and Marmite. Marmite is hard to describe, and as far as I know it has no American equivalent. It is primarily yeast extract. It is thick and salty. Its flavour is reminiscent of cheese for me, which is an interesting sensation because as many of you know I pretty much do not eat diary. So in that way I find it intriguing. It also has the suggestion of concentrated ale… kind of like what a stout or porter might taste if you boiled away the water and alcohol maybe… perhaps I will try that sometime…

So that leaves the interior, which is inevitably mayo, tomato. and a guest fruit. Frequently the guest is kiwi, plum, and peach. Less frequent guests are avocado, apple, pears, and Sharon fruit (a kind of persimmon). And the juice from cutting up the tomato and guest fruit are carefully transferred to the interior slices before packing it up into its baggie. In some ways, the sandwich is a throwback to my vegetarian days. But I really do look forward to it.

Recently, my sandwich has been the source of inspiration for some sandwich making at work. We often discuss each other’s ingredients over lunch. I have to say that these other sandwiches sound amazing, like a multiple course meal like prawns (shrimp) and chillis or salmon cheese and walnut… plus what ever salads (veg). I feel more like the sandwich peasant than the Sandwich King in comparison. Maybe it is the size, or maybe because I was first?

Anyway, there has been talk of a contest. That would be fun. But I kind of like my cheapo ‘fruity salady’ sandwich. I will definitely miss Marmite when we finally move back. But there is no point focusing on that now: Monday, I will be having my usual with avocado.

Photos:

Bread

Marmite

Tomato

Avocado

Crown