Europe Trip, part 1 June 27, 2009

We just got back from a lovely European vacation.  I hadn’t ever been there, and for Chris it had been about 10 years.  Our friend Melanie lives in Rome,  and decided to go for a visit via London and Paris.  Below is a description of our escapades.

Photos on Flickr Posted soon!

Day 1

Direct flight from Raleigh to London, which arrives at Heathrow at in the morning.  We take the underground to the hotel (Millennium Mayfair Grovesnor Square, which was a fabulous place to stay) where we drop off our bags and, since it is too early to check in, immediatly start exploring our neighborhood, namely, we go to the British Museum.  When the Brits colonized everyone, they brought back treasure and it is all displayed in this enormous, very well organized musuem.  We take Rick Steve’s advice about the British Musuem and focus on Egypt, Greeks and Mesopotamia (and we do see the Rosetta Stone, how cool).  We also look at China, India, and Indonesia but by that point were so dead on our feet that we headed back to the hotel for a quick nap.

After the nap, we did a Fat Tire Bike Tour of the city.  In my opinion, this is the way to see a city.  You see all the highlights without having to pound the pavement!  The bikes are very comfy 3 speed beach bikes, and it is not strenuous, we even stopped at a pub midway for a beer.  The guide was really knowledgeable and funny, too.

After the tour, dinner at a pub and then bed!  We were so tired.

Speaking of pubs, we had previously decided to only drink beer while in the UK.  Here is a list of the beers we drank.  Chris was impressed by all the cask ales: every pub seemed to have one.

Here is a list of the beers we drank (over the course of a few days)

London Pride

Toddy Lager

Bombadeir bitter

Sam Smith bitter (from a cask, the best beer we tasted overall)

Youngs bitter

Youngs special ale

Youngs Waggledance

Staropramen

Some Lemongrass thing, and some summer ale, cant remember the brewer

Spitfire Ale (Kentish style)

Greene King IPA

Day 2

Tower of London, baby!  We spent almost the entire day here.  There was a big exhibit of Henry VIII’s arms and armor in the White Tower, which was really interesting.  We did the beefeater tour which was very cool, and it turns out “our” beefeater spent 3 years guarding Rudolph Hess.  Not at the tower, so far as I know. Checked out the crown jewels and and exhibit on crown making (did you know they recycle the gems from crown to crown)?

We did a bit of wandering after that, ended up at St. Pauls which was the first of many lovely churches we viewed, walked the Millenum Bridge and wound up at a Pub on the Thames.  After a few beers we tried to get tickets for the Globe Theatre (sold out) so we rode the London Eye instead.  Yes, even me Miss scared-of-heights. It wasnt that bad though there is a photo of me looking distinctly nervous.  The view really is amazing from the Top.

Ate Indian food for dinner.  Mmm.

Day 3

We started off the day with a visit to the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms. This was a highlight of the entire trip, and I really do recommend it. It was fascinating!  The cabinet war rooms are a maze of underground space where Churchill and his cabinet worked during WWII.  It was amazing, and interesting.  The museum,  which is off to one side, is a great exhibit of Churchill’s exemplary life.

After this we got a bite to eat and went to  St. Martin-in-the-fields for a free concert, which they do a few times a week.  Anyone who listens to WCPE radio in the morning, like we do, knows that host David Ballentine LOVES to play pieces recorded from this lovely church so we had to check it out for ourselves.   The concert was a clarinetist, a tenor, and a violinist from Wellington College who each performed a few solo pieces.  Lovely.

We had about an hour to wander around the National Gallery before catching the tube out to Richmond for dinner with my cousin Tom Fishburne and his family.   Tom, Tallie and thier two little (hilarous and adorable) daughters Martha and Scarlet have been living here for 2 1/2 years. Richmond is a really cute town on the Thames home to Ron Wood, Eric Clapton, and is famous for the bar where the Rolling Stones got their start.  It was so great to see the  Fishburnes, and my cousin is so talented I have to plug his website right here.  (He is a marketing guy, cartoonist, and all around cool dude).

Day 4

We started out downtown, watching the changing of the guards and then Westminster Abbey before going out to Notting Hill to wander Portobello Road’s Saturday Market (trivia: did you know Orson Wells lived on Portobello Road)?  The intense crowds scared us off so we went back to Oxford St and, at Tallie’s reccomendation, had a proper English tea at Selfridges (which itself was a madhouse due to a big sale they were having.  50% off Prada bags, anyone?)  That was a really tasty treat!  I love love love clotted cream, and would like to eat it everyday.  I also love minature food, like tea sandwiches.  Crayfish salad with rocket was my favorite.

After that we went to a pub and drank a bunch of beers before heading to St. Pancras to catch the high speed chunnel train to Paris!  More on that, later.

Finally, what you have all been waiting for:

list of birds seen in the UK

Chaffinch

Great tit

Blue tit

Long-tailed tit

Jackdaw

Grey Heron

Shag

Cormorant

Lesser black-backed Gull

Tufted Duck

Coot

Mistle Thrus

Blackbird

Starling

Magpie

Woodpigeon

Mute Swan

Pochard

Carrion  Crow

Herring Gull

some parrots I need to look up….

Absence June 27, 2009

Makes the heart grow fonder?

Sorry to have been so far from this blog for quite some time now. Its been a crazy spring. As most of you know, my boss has cancer and I have never worked so hard in my life.  Then, field season hit and our tech got sick.  So its been crazy because I have been in the field so much working. I don’t know at this point if life will get any easier but I will try to be back in the blogosphere!

And another thing about the NC budget March 3, 2009

Well, maybe more about the state of the news in NC.  There is a HUGE article about how the Governor pulled $50 million from the NC Education Lottery Reserve Fund and all this politician complaining about how its a breach of public trust.  How come there were NO articles or fuss raised about how she pulled $100 million from the clean water management trust fund last week?  Or $50 million from the public school textbook fund or the $100 million from the public school capital trust fund, also pulled last week?

We have our fuss priorites messed up.  The clean water management trust fun money grab was the one that really made me mad.

New Yard Bird February 6, 2009

I came home late the other night, and Chris was standing in the door of the garage. He beckoned me over and pointed to the sky.  On a branch above the roof was a Great Horned Owl eating a squirrel. It was perfectly silhouetted against the cloudy sky.  Very cool (though not for the squirrel).  After we watched it for a few moments it decided to take its dinner “to go” and flew off to the front yard.

Where the owl was sitting was right next to a squirrel nest. My guess is the bird just tore the nest up, pulled dinner out and chowed down!

Eat Your Veggies June 23, 2008

Being someone who likes to cook, I own quite a few cookbooks. In fact, I own so many that I really actively try not to buy any more. Last year, I borrowed my sister in law’s copy of Sara Foster’s cookbook Fresh Every Day. Sarah Foster is the person behind Foster’s Market in Durham and Chapel Hill, which was one of my favorite spots when I lived out in that direction. Well, I borrowed that cookbook from Laura so long she had to sneak into my house and steal it back. So I bought it.

This cookbook introduced me to roasted vegetables. Now I had roasted all the usual veggie suspects (potatoes) but had never attempted things like peas, cabbage, or cauliflower. Its amazing what 20 minutes in the oven and a little olive oil can do! The veggies come out with so much flavor and its just so easy.

Here are some rough directions that will work for most veggies.

Take your veggies and clean and trim (for things like brussels sprouts, asparagus), chop into pieces (cauliflower), or cut into quarters (cabbage). Put in a big bowl, and toss with some salt and pepper and 2 tbsp olive oil (I throw in 2 tbsp melted butter [at Ms. Foster's reccomendation]) then pour everything on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes. Its not a bad idea to stir things once or twice, and please note asparagus and brussels sprouts may not take 20 minutes so you want to keep an eye on them.

Ms. Foster’s recipie for roasted peas I have now made for two work potlucks and both times it got rave reviews: roast as described above 1 package frozen peas, 1/2 pint cherry toms, and 1 small red onion, diced.

Now, go eat your veggies!

100 bands in 5 days May 29, 2008

Yep, just returned from our annual Memorial Day beach trip/music festival in Wilmington. This post title is a total misnomer, because even though Wefest boasts that many bands, I actually didn’t see that many.  In fact, I only went two nights (hey, someone had to stay at the house and drink gin and tonics).   I wanted to tell you about a few that I thought were pretty cool though.  Before I dive into that, a little background info.  Wefest is a 12 year old,  smallish festival.  Wefest this year asked various musically inclined alumni to host nights and pick the line up (they used to do the bookings by sending around mix cds and asking folks to vote on who should play!).  Its a great place to hear new bands.  The Soapbox Lounge, the hosting venue, isa fantastic 5 story venue in downtown Wilmington.

Some of 2008’s highlights:

Ear PWR

A duo from Winston Salem consisting of a guy who looks like Will Ferrell doing Napoleon Dynamite and a girl who looks like an elf with very, very large sunglasses.  They will have you dancing!  I LOVE “Sophie” because of the hilarious chorus.  Plus, I love when people write songs about their pets.

Midtown Dickens

Girl punk bluegrass.  I was so bummed that they did not play “Tetris” because that song was in my head all that day, but apparently they are moving away from cute and into bluegrass more.   They have a xylophone, AND they play the saw!!

Red Collar

This band reminds me of some of the newer Superchunk; rockin’ so hard (and boy are they great live, I have seen them a few times before, because my pal The Professor LOVES them) plus really tuneful and poppy.  I love Stay and the song with the chorus “we’ve been workin’ over time” that I don’t know the name of.  The version of Stay on the myspace page does not do the live show justice!

The other act that is newsworthy is Poingly, just because I found him so…..nearly naked as to be distracting.  And not in a good way!  Not sure about the music….

We had a great time with our usual gang of pals we vacation with: late night card playing, beach going, went and saw Iron Man (which is a great flick) and sleeping real late.  Fun times!

Yes, I speak Okie May 21, 2008

I just got back from the SPNHC Conference (we academics call that “spinach”) meetings in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City is really neat! We had a good time exploring, when not in meetings and at social events. The conferences were great, very motivating. It is nice to hobnob with people who do the same thing I do. In addition, bonding time was had with my own coworkers.

Here are a few things you should know about Oklahoma City if you ever plan to go there:

1) They have the coolest state bird ever, The Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. Awesome!

2) They have a street named after The Flaming Lips

3) The city has done all these really neat urban renewal and art projects. They have built a new stadium for the baseball team, turned an area of old warehouses and puddles into the very hip Brickyard area, turned a vernal river into a nationally renowned kayaking/sculling center, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Its a fun place to hang out.

4) Being in the middle of a tornado area, they have a big research center at OU. You can pay to go chase tornadoes!

5) The Sam Noble Museum is really great, especially the trail of tears exhibit.

6) I found the Oklahoma Bombing Memorial very moving. They have made beauty and brought hope out of a horrible tragedy.

7) Our hotel ruled! It was very swanky, though I was bummed we didn’t get to meet the ghost.

Oklahoma is flat, and breezy. Apparently the weather there can be quite intense…very hot in the summer. We hit it at just the right time! A great conference, and a very nice city. And trust me, its not a party until someone does the limbo under the Wooly Mammoth statue….