The trip: Part 4 (Athens)

Day four
We said goodbye-for-now to London and hopped an early flight to Athens. We flew over the Alps!


Then we embarked on a sweaty, crowded two-hour subway ride to our hotel.

We stayed at the Fresh Hotel, an ultra-modern place with lots of hot pink everywhere. When we got up to the room, none of the lights worked. We flipped every combination of switches we could think of before Kim finally called the front desk and said, “We need someone to come up and show us how the lights work.” The woman laughed at us and said you have to insert your key card into a slot in the wall before the electricity will work. (Is this a thing now? They might think about mentioning it at check-in so the guests aren’t made to feel like morons.)

We took a walk though the Plaka, which is the very touristy area surrounding the Acropolis. And when I say touristy, believe me. It was unreal. Block after block of young guys selling the same fake designer handbags, dime-store toys and cliche Greek souvenirs. And yet it was interesting. Unlike anywhere else I’d ever been.


Athens was kind of fascinating. Some areas of the city were pretty cosmopolitan, with upscale department stores and sushi restaurants and people walking around in suits. We were staying in the more “gritty” area of the city, with the outdoor meat markets and pet shops with caged pigeons on the sidewalk. But even there we saw many sanitation workers cleaning up trash and hosing down the sidewalks. Everything was very clean. But everything was also covered in graffiti. Everything. Here was one recurring theme:


Athens was also full of stray dogs. They just roamed around, crossing busy streets, sleeping on sidewalks. Many of them had collars, though they didn’t seem very interested in people. Most of them were really fat.

We took a short tour of the Plaka on the Sunshine Express, a little open-air trolley thing. It was sort of surreal how around every turn there was some new piece of astounding ancient history. There were ruins just right there, in the middle of town, like it was no big deal.


Dinner that night was seafood risotto at Palea Athina, which was our first opportunity to try octopus, which we loved!

Then we wanted some dessert and coffee, so we stopped into a deelish-looking patisserie called Chatzi. It took 30 minutes for the girl to explain to us in broken English what everything was. This was also the first time we noticed how expensive food is in Greece. The pastry I originally picked out was $18. (I chose something else.) The thimbles of cappuccino were $6 each. This came to be a running theme during our visit, and we considered it a major victory the next day when we got normal-sized coffees for only $4.

The trip: Part 3 (Winchester)

Day three
We started the day with coffee from Costa Coffee, which is the British Starbucks. Then we hopped on a train to the countryside, on our way to Jane Austen’s house.

We arrived in Winchester to find no signage or information of any kind about the house. The train station attendant had no idea what I was talking about. A nice taxi driver finally directed us toward the bus stop, which wasn’t quite right, but a bus driver directed us toward the bus station, which was.

Winchester was a charming town with a nice pedestrian area and lots of cute shops and restaurants, and I’d recommend it for a day trip even if you don’t go on to Jane’s house. But we were on a mission.

A bus took us to the village of Chawton, a quiet, quaint little place with thatched-roof houses and lovely gardens. And, of course:



Jane lived the last eight years of her life in this house and wrote “Mansfield Park,” “Emma” and “Persuasion” and revised her other earlier novels here. It was a cute little museum. And it was wonderful to imagine Jane living there and sitting down to write at her tiny writing table.


We ate a ploughman’s lunch at the village’s only pub, the Greyfriar, and walked down to Chawton House, the estate where Jane’s wealthy brother lived. Nearby are the graves of Jane’s mother and sister and a lovely field of sheep. Very pastoral.


Next we headed to Winchester Cathedral, where Jane is buried. The cathedral was built in 1079 and is the longest Gothic cathedral in Europe. It felt unbelievably old.



Jane’s grave is simple, and the epitaph doesn’t mention her writing. A memorial plaque nearby was added later to commemorate her literary achievements.


That evening, back in London, we saw “Oliver!” in the West End and ate a glorious Indian feast at Punjab, the U.K.’s oldest North Indian restaurant. We were still thinking about the food weeks later.

The trip: Part 2 (Hampton Court and British Museum)

Day two
The first thing we did on day two was get slightly lost on the way to the train station. It turned out OK, though, because we stumbled upon the London Wall, the remains of the defensive wall constructed around the city by the Romans in the 2nd century.


We did eventually make it to Waterloo Station.


Our destination was Hampton Court, Henry VIII’s palace just outside London. It was built in 1514 as home of the Archbishop of York, who gave it to the king when he figured out he was likely next on the king’s beheading schedule.


Hampton Court was full of amazing, giant tapestries that the guide told us were the most valuable things owned by the British Royal Family. They covered many of the walls.


The ceilings were pretty nice, too.


“Could you take our picture in front of this painting? Actually, the painting’s not that important. But make sure to get the rug.”


We ate lunch at a little place across from the palace called Blubecker’s and had the best New England chowder since we were in New England.

We took the train back to London and headed for the British Museum.


This is what it looks like when you walk in.


We were primarily there to see the Parthenon Marbles since we knew we’d be seeing the actual Parthenon later in the trip. And they were magnificent.




In case you don’t know, most of the surviving marble sculptures that were once on the Parthenon were removed by a British ambassador and shipped to Britain in the early 19th century. They’ve been on display in the British Museum since 1816. Athens has continually requested that the marbles be returned to Greece, but Britain refuses. It’s a fascinating debate.


After the museum, we wandered through Russell Square and Bedford Square, which has the loveliest arched doorways.


Then we wandered around Soho and had dinner at Balan’s and dessert at Amalfi. We finished the evening with drinks at the Candy Bar. We were a little early, but we made the most of it.


Tomorrow, Day three: A literary pilgrimage!

The trip: Part 1

So you might have heard I went on a trip recently. It was rather spectacular. I couldn’t possibly recount it all in one post, so here is the first installment.

Day one
Kim and I left Kansas City at 1:35 p.m. Friday, with a stop in Chicago before heading to London. The flight was about eight hours. We saw the sun set over New England.


We arrived in London at about 8:30 a.m., having had maybe two or three hours of good sleep. But we felt surprisingly fresh. We took the Tube from the airport, discovering along the way that the Tube station two minutes from our hotel was closed for the weekend. So we got off at a different station, stupidly not noticing exactly how far away we were. Then we dragged our suitcases over uneven cobbly sidewalks for an hour before finally finding our hotel. The Rookery was a charming little place full of antiques, built in a block of 18th-century row houses.


Our room wasn’t ready, so we headed out to find some breakfast. We went into the Fox & Anchor, a traditional old pub with a mahogany bar. The guy behind the counter said, “Fancy a wee beer?” It was 10 a.m. We skipped the beer and ordered breakfast instead. My bacon and fried egg sandwich was served on a wooden cutting block. Awesome. (FYI, in London, “bacon” is ham.)

From there we walked to St. Bartholomew the Great, one of London’s oldest churches (1123) and featured in “Four Weddings and a Funeral.” We went in, but a ceremony was going on that might have been an ordination of some kind, so we couldn’t stay. But the building was old and fascinating.


Then we walked to St. Paul’s Cathedral, the beautiful and enormous cathedral where Charles and Diana were married. It features one of the largest domes in the world. If you climb 530 steps, you can go to the top of the dome. Despite our lack of sleep, we went for it.





Then we went back to the hotel and collapsed. We are resilient travelers, though, and after a two-hour nap, we were ready to go again. First we walked along the Thames and saw the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.



For dinner we went to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a fantastic wood-paneled old place said to have been frequented by Charles Dickens, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Arthur Conan Doyle and Samuel Johnson. We had the fish and chips.


Tomorrow, Day two: Monarchs and looted treasures!

Semper fi

Today would have been my dad’s 78th birthday. Which is insane to me because it sounds so old. Almost 80! It's been 14 years since he passed away, so he’s frozen in time for me at 64.


I’m reading “Going After Cacciato” by Tim O’Brien, a novel about the Vietnam War, which makes me think about my dad, even though he never talked about Vietnam. I only ever remember having one conversation with him about it. I was in sixth or seventh grade and wanted to interview him for a school paper. But I didn’t know what questions to ask, so he just started talking and I wrote down what he said. Here’s an excerpt:

Young Marines became confused when they would fight for a piece of real estate, watch their buddies get wounded or killed, and then return to their cantonment positions, allowing the Viet Cong to again have control of the land. Then they would go back in a few months to fight for the same piece of land, perhaps seeing more buddies hurt or killed.

This confusion spread back to the people of the United States and the Vietnam War became one of the most unpopular wars the U.S. had ever been involved in. There were mass demonstrations in this country, draft card burning, and possible draftees fleeing to Canada to avoid the draft.

Although the United Nations forces possessed far superior fire power, naval power and air power, the North Vietnamese were able to fight the U.N. troops to a standstill. The war finally ended when it was agreed upon that a new government would be established in Saigon and all U.N. troops would withdraw. Although we won the war, we lost the peace, as the South Vietnamese government is now communist.

What he gave me was pretty dry business. Not much about the thoughts or feelings of the troops on the ground. He did seem to emphasize the frustration and confusion of the young Marines, who he said often didn’t even understand why they were in Vietnam. He wasn’t a young Marine, though. He was in his mid-30s, already a veteran of the Korean War. He was obviously concerned with what the young guys were going through, but what was the experience like for him? What did he think of the protests and politics back in the U.S.? What was it like to come home? These are the kinds of questions I would ask if I’d been able to know him as an adult.


I recently submitted this picture to myparentswereawesome.tumblr.com, which features old photos of people’s parents being awesome. It’s very enjoyable. Before the fanny packs and Andrea Bocelli concerts, your parents (and grandparents) were once free-wheeling, fashion-forward, and super awesome.

I don’t know who took that photo of my dad or where it was taken or when, but I know he was awesome. Happy birthday, dad. I miss you.

November

Even though I haven't blogged in about a hundred years, I'm thinking about doing the National Blog Posting Month again this year. I actually haven't felt like blogging since last November ended, but in the past couple of weeks, I have felt the urge again. I'm sure a full month of daily blogging will be enough to squelch it.

In any event, I'm posting this so I can keep my options open.

OMG!

OK, so I finally found a good reason to post: I must warn the world.

This morning I slipped on my shoes out of the closet, and I noticed what felt like fuzz or dog hair on one shoe. So I took it off and picked it up, and the shoe was covered with spider web. I cautiously tipped the shoe forward, and there was a spider crouching in the toe!

Thank God it didn't bite me when I put the shoe on. I don't know whether it was a brown recluse. I took the shoe outside and threw it on the ground and the spider crawled out.

Seriously, people, shake those shoes out.

Gratuitous baby pictures

This is my niece Jaylee.

Ioway

I went to Iowa last weekend with my mother-in-law to see Brandi Carlile in concert. I'm not sure I would drive six hours just for a concert, regardless of the performer, but my mother-in-law is sort of a Brandi groupie.

And the concert was pretty great. If you don't know Brandi Carlile's music, check it out. Start here. She's a talented gal. Her voice is so rich and gritty, and I love the way classic country has influenced her sound.

Here I am looking like a dork while she signs my T-shirt. I couldn't think of anything to say to her, so she just starting singing "Jackson" while she signed.


If it looks like we were in an art gallery, it's because we were. The concert was at Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines, a giant Victorian mansion that's been converted into a stunning theater space and art gallery. It was really neat.


On the way home from Des Moines we drove through Madison County, so we decided to veer off the interstate and see the covered bridges. I have not read the book or seen the movie, so the only appeal of the bridges was to see something historic that we don't have in Kansas.


But honestly, they're not much to look at. There are only five of the original bridges left, and they're really only famous because of the movie, which looked pretty cheesy to me. But regardless, now I can say I've seen them. And I must admit, they are kind of cute and rustic and Amish-looking and all delightfully painted red.

New on Etsy

I don't intend to post every time I list something new in the shop, but this one was a particular labor of love.

This design was inspired by the work of Orla Kiely, a London designer who uses a lot of bold, modern patterns. I think her stuff is really fun and cool, and I thought it would make a good cross stitch. I like how it turned out.

I may experiment with doing some other graphic patterns, but most likely they will not be this small and detailed because this was a little tedious, even for me.