I will now activate your hand towel.

Last night Stephanie, her brother and his wifey took me to Baum'e in Palo Alto. It's a Molecular take on French food. I have to say that even if the rest of the culinary world thinks the Molecular thing is "over" I still think its a fun experience and highly creative. I've been to places like Moto and WD50 which are somewhat considered Mecca for the cuisine and I thought Baum'e brought it on this night. One thing I liked about their menu was the fact that they don't list the individual dishes on their twelve course tasting menu. Rather they list the ingredients used. I appreciated that as it lent a bit of mystery to the occasion. I'll cut to the food. Firstly, I'll never write a food review in the traditional sense. If I didn't like the restaurant I'm certainly not going to talk about it. Secondly, I'll never talk about the food by saying dishes were playful, whimsical or that the chef paid an homage to his traditional roots. I'll never talk about the beets singing a joyous medley in perfect harmony with the young, supple, virginal goat cheese etc. that stuff always stands out to me as a writer who wants to write prose but no one would read his manuscript. I grew up on the mean suburban streets yo! I speak the raw truth about food. That or I'm just too pragmatic and don't take myself seriously enough to prattle on like that. Either way I keep it real about food. If I'm bothering to write about it and I'm not being paid in any way then let's just assume I liked it and would eat there again. On to pictures of the eats!

I think the best part of the evening was when the sort of nerdy waiter placed a small white capsule in a dish in front of us and said "please don't eat this." he returned shortly with a pitcher of hot water and said "I will now activate your hand towels." Leonard Nimoy would ask this guy for notes on his Spock-like delivery. Classic! So yeah we ate some stuff:

New sign at the gallery

Ok, the title of this post is a bit boring, if not obvious. Yes, we just installed a brand new sign outside the gallery. It looks amazing! The guys who designed and built it outdid themselves. Oh and you might as well check out our updated site. It's really slick. Anyway, 2012, it's on!



Wherever you go, there you are

India, crazy India

We just recently returned from our epic quest to India, bookended or possibly buffered by Hong Kong. I say that because Hong Kong is such a great way to return to the uber-modern world. You would be hard pressed to find two more distinctly different places than Hong Kong and India. There's also a more pragmatic upside to a little stop off before the final Indian push. It's about a 15 hour ride to Hong Kong alone, and then a further five and a half to Delhi. I can bear a long flight like a champ, but I'll take a two day leg stretch if I can get it.

So yeah, Hong Kong. Amazing hotel room, beautiful view. Noodles and egg puffs. Late night Kingfisher flight to Delhi. They served chickpeas, rice and nann on the flight. Very promising.

Upon arrival, we stepped out into the night air of Delhi. I immediately noticed that it was filled with smoke. Not so much smog but that subtly eye stinging smoke of wood fires. I suppose I immediately decided it was funeral pyres, but I knew logically that was just me conjuring up a very stereotypical India and that rather it was somewhat chilly and it was probably just normal fires for keeping warm and cooking. This realization was a definite hit to my hopes for a Temple of Doom-like adventure. Near the van that picked us up we noticed a dog lying just near it. Of course Steph and I thought it must be owned by someone. Then we saw it had a buddy and they were just sort of having a lie down. These were just the first of about a million feral dogs we'd see throughout India. As we got to our hotel, which ended up actually being a pretty fancy hotel, we happened upon what was to be a theme throughout the whole trip. The service at Indian restaurants is awkward at the best of times and downright shit the other times. India would do well to hire some ladies once and a while. There's to much testosterone in the Indian service industry.

We got a bit of a late start on our first day in Delhi. The traffic was mental. People basically make the traffic rules up as they go along. It wasn't as crazy as Cambodian traffic, but definitely nutty. The horn is used much differently in India. We use it as a last resort or in case of emergency. They use it as a turn signal, as an alert to cows and people who just decide to walk out into traffic and whatever other reason they can think of to lay on the horn. Let me just say that our driver was no joke. This dude drove us around for nine days in a large van that he managed to fit through some of the smallest spaces and all sorts of wild traffic without breaking a sweat. He was also quite the practitioner of jib-jab and gabbing. The guy chatted up his driving assistant and our guide for hours on end. The other two barely got a word in edgewise. He must be on top of all the latest gossip and Bollywood goings on. Also, I started to imagine that they had a good shit talking session about their boss and coworkers and maybe a little about how his wife nags him. You don't need to speak the language to know these things. We went to Jama Masjid which is a huge mosque. We had to ditch our shoes and the ladies had to rent a huge shawl to cover themselves up with. Our guide told us the mosque basically divides the Hindu and the Muslim part of old Delhi. He made seem like the two sides never hang out in each other's neighborhood. We also learned this axium: know a Muslim business by the goat hanging out in front. Cultural lesson learned. We had lunch at a Bengali restaurant called Oh Calcutta that I saw on Bizarre Foods. It was tasty but again, awkward service. I really regret not getting to walk around Chandni Chowk and visiting all of it's amazing food stalls (testing my intestianl fortitude) and little shops. Instead we had to go to visit a "factory" to see hand worked Indian crafts. Ok, this is the bullshit part of being on a guided tour and the part I think I hate most. In countries like India, the tour guides all have deals with local shops which dictates that they get the tour group to their shops. This is priority Alpha, and the actual tour is just a build up to the visit to the shop. I experienced this in Thailand and I hated it then and I hate it now. At least in Thailand I was on my own and I could just tell the taxi driver to fuck off. Since we were on a tour I had to roll with it. Fortunately our tour was a private tour with Steph's family and after one visit they weren't into it either. Although we did have to endure it once more. What's more annoying is that if you try to ask the tour guide to take you to or recommend any shop he's not working with he'll either feign ignorance about it or just not want to take you there. Case in point we wanted to shop for raw, bulk spices. He basically said those places don't exist and took us to some little shop that sold some pre-packaged spices and a guy that wanted to sell us baubles and trinkets. Of course as we drove around we saw more than a few spice vendors. Whatevs.  We had an amazing dinner at our hotel that night. We ordered way too much food and gorged ourselves. This set up another theme for the rest of the trip. I love Indian food, and I loved it even more in India. But seriously, how much curry can a person eat before hitting the point of saturation. I would say probably about three days, and that goes for Indians too. I came to realize that Indian peeps don't eat Indian restaurant food every day. I wanted to try more day to day cuisine, but hey you eat where you eat sometimes.

The next place we visited was Agra, home of one of the wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal. What a shit-hole Agra is. Again, I've been to a very, very poor country before. I'm not as shocked by extreme poverty as I first was. I understand it's how most of the world lives and I'm not disparaging them that. What I mean is that once we crossed into the state Uttar Pradesh I noticed that people's standard of living started to decline and even the already chaotic traffic became utterly chaotic and mass confusion. Of course there was some sort of festival going on that turned a four hour drive into about a seven hour drive. We discovered from our guide that Uttar Pradesh is the most corrupt state in India. Still though, how does the country allow it's main tourist draw to exist within a giant cess pit?  The Taj Mahal was everything it was billed to be however. We even had one of those photographers from Slumdog Millionaire take all kinds of tourist pics of us. There are some choice prom style poses of Steph and I that are rather amusing. To sum up, Taj Mahal great, Agra shit.

We then headed to Jaipur in Rajasthan. As soon as we crossed into the arid and somewhat California-like terrain I noticed things started to even out. From the quality of the road to general disposition of the people Rajasthan was a definite improvement. We got into Jaipur in the evening and our hotel turned out to be this old converted palace. There was a wedding in full swing happening on the hotel grounds. It was an incredibly opulent looking affair. So much color everywhere. In fact color is one thing India is not lacking. Even the poorest of poor women manage to have exceptionally brilliantly colored Saris and even some rather shiny gold jewelry. Indian dudes tend to rock a decidedly more Eastern bloc look with their drab casual slacks and button down shirts. Always, button down shirts. One thing I noticed in particular is that Indian men tend to believe it's about 30 degrees colder than it actually is. I noticed a great many sweaters and jackets being worn on 80 plus degree days. As a person who is always hot and avoids the heat of day as much as possible I was suffering for them. Anyway, we visited the Amber fort which is perched atop a large rocky hill just outside the city. It was quite amazing really and it's walls reminded me of the Great Wall the way it seemed to flow up and over the hills like a gigantic wave of stone. Since it was up a steep incline, we of course had to do the tourist thing and ride elephants up the hill. I felt awful for doing it. I hate when animals are used in that manner.  I just think it's utterly demeaning to them. I don't condone carriage rides through a park and I certainly don't condone elephant rides. It was getting hot already, and I could sense that our elephant wasn't loving it either. I had this looming Water for Elephants moment, where I could see our Elephant just saying "ugh, I've had it with this shit!" and we end up getting tossed overboard and trampled like a grape in the produce isle. Other than that, the fort itself was amazing. The views from the walls of the fort were picture perfect.

Now for a bit of cultural reprieve. Even though I'm a super history nerd and really enjoy visiting the past I equally enjoy learning about modern culture and the differences between various cultures especially our own. One thing I can say is that Indians are not used to seeing a girl with pink hair nor heavily tattooed people. Steph kept getting stopped by people, especially little girls asking if they could have a picture with her. People were also fascinated with our tattoos. They mostly couldn't grasp the idea of the permanence of them. The most common question we fielded was "is it permanent? Or, "is that under the skin?" I know they do a fair share of Mehndi and Henna work in India, seemingly mostly on white female tourists who just finished reading Eat, Pray Love from what I saw, but those are not permanent. So, the actual idea of getting a tattoo wasn't a big deal it was just the fact that it won't wash off. The next question we often received was "how much does it cost?" This was a question that was very hard for us to answer. In a country where people may make a couple hundred dollars a year it was hard to answer this question truthfully and not feel bad about it or seem like wasteful Americans. We didn't want to rub in the fact that what we paid for our whims of fashion could have probably supported a great many people for a good long while. Again, it's just a cultural difference. I realize that I'm lucky enough to be in a position where I can do that sort of thing and I appreciate it greatly. But, like I said I didn't want to rub it in. So we just politely side-stepped the question. Also, India is rather heavily male-dominated. So much so that you for sure don't see as many women out and about as you do men. I think that is probably not so true in the more modern parts of the country. In fact I watched a lot of Indian TV throughout the trip and I noticed that what I was seeing is country that is not too different from home. Even the mundane commercials for laundry detergent and processed cheese and breakfast cereal all were partly in English and very much like home. The shows all featured very stylish, good looking people just like home actually. But, I saw none of this India and I asked the guide why that was. He of course responded it was because we're tourists and we're seeing old world tourist sites and not the modernized, westernized parts of town. It seems to me that tourists may not mind so much a visit to that side of town as well to sort of get the whole perspective. Otherwise most tourists will just assume India is a land that time forgot based on what they see. Here's a radical prediction for you: I believe India will probably be the next China in the next few decades. And yes I have reasons for this, but they aren't germaine to the story at hand.

I digress, back to tourism. The drive from Jaipur to our last stop, Udaipur was to take about eight to ten hours. We had a scheduled stop about halfway to spend the night and break up the drive. It was of much discussion as to what this would end up being like. We exited the highway and ended up on a one lane, barely paved road that took us through little mud hut villages and farms. Very, very rural and very real. I couldn't imagine a hotel of the likes which we had been staying existing out there. I imagined us staying in a tent. After about an hour or so we came to a sizable village whose narrow streets tested our drivers maneuvering skills to the fullest. I still wasn't sure about this endeavor. Would we even have running water? Was there going to be the dreaded Asian squat toilet in our future? At the end of the village a large gate was opened for us and we drove into an incredibly beautiful and pastoral setting. It reminded me right away of my grandparents property in southern Minnesota. The property it turns out was a turn of the century retreat for the royal family and is still owned by the family and is called Shahpura Bagh. The guest house had only six large rooms that were straight out of a J. Peterman catalog. Both the Seinfeld version and the real one. And I quote: "After a couple of Camparis, I notice an emerging pattern. A statistically significant number of men are sporting this shirt, nearly all of them are accompanied by belle regazze." Yes, that's Italy, but you get the idea. There was no TV and no internet. It was meant for relaxation, and I didn't mind at all. The food was amazing. The farm to table idea was taken seriously here. They had their own cows that they milked daily for yogurt and dairy products. There was no menu and you showed up for dinner and they brought an array of dishes. The highlights for me was fresh spinach and the buttermilk curry. It was very rustic and some of the best food I had on the trip. Sadly, I didn't get to do my usual street food adventures. When you're traveling by yourself or with one other person and you get sick, it's no big deal. You can hang around the hotel room until it passes. But, when you're on a highly time sensitive and detailed tour with other people you just can't afford to get sick. Having stomach issues while driving through rural India. Rural anywhere actually, is just a petrifying fear for me. So I had to forgo all of the mouth watering chaat I saw on a daily basis. Besides our guide would have never actually "guided" me to any good ones had I asked. Instead he would have denied there even was such a thing as street food and instead recommended whichever tourist trap restaurant he was in the pocket of. By the way, we ended up eating at several Indian truck stops called Dhabas. Some weren't too bad. The one where I saw a couple of large rats running around the dining area was probably my favorite. I didn't eat there and felt like I picked the perfect time to not have been hungry. I didn't mention it to anyone else. They were already half finished by that point and it only would have caused mass nausea.

Moving on, the last city. Udaipur, the lake city and most importantly, the floating Lake Palace hotel which was the setting for the epic James Bond flick Octopussy. Mind you this was impetus for this entire trip to begin with.  Much like me and my dad, Steph's dad is a James Bond nut himself. Anyway, Udaipur was exceptionally picturesque, thus all the pictures we took. The city is situated in the hills and around a large lake. The facades that broached the lake shores were generally very quaint and had a decidedly old world feel to them. You didn't have to squint very hard to imagine how must have looked a few hundred years ago. There were also some very modern, and upscale hotels mixed in as well but they tended to fit right in architecturally speaking. The night at the Palace Lake hotel was awesome. It was every bit the luxury hotel it's billed to be. I still have no idea who is supposed to get tips at places like that and who isn't. The very last thing I deem worth mentioning is that if you ever want a donut with cheese and Italian herbs you can find it at Indira Gandhi International Airport. I didn't partake, but the McVeggie burger at McDonalds is quite a thing to behold. Seriously, it's pretty tasty.

Oh yeah, the pictures. There are quite a few. Also, just an FYI, the dog you'll is just having a sleep. What kind of morbid bastard do you think I am?

Fecal Face Visits Big Umbrella Studios

It was very cool of Fecal Face to pay us visit during the Divisadero Artwalk. He also managed to snap a pic of me doing my best Sherpa/ porter impression. What do I mean? What do you mean what do I mean? Look at the stuff I'm clearly carrying around. Trust me, that's hard work.

Anyway, here's the link: CLICK YE HERE TO HEAR TALES OF YE OLDE ARTWALK!

Takin' er easy for all us sinners.

Wherever you go, there you are

Utterly

Devastated.

Spice Odyssey: Exploring the Burning Tongues of Saturn.: Calabrian Bastard!

Spice Odyssey: Exploring the Burning Tongues of Saturn.: Calabrian Bastard!

Muffin Tops

Excuse me, are those blueberries organic? Why yes they are.


Wherever you go, there you are

Waiting for the Blow Up

Last Friday was the opening of the "We Out Here" photo exhibition at Big Umbrella Studios. As per usual we had a great turnout as far as the head count goes. We had Oliver on hand helping out as a videographer. He filmed artist interviews featuring Tess our newest staff member.  Yours truly even appeared on film to talk about his own photos that were on show. I have even less personality on film than I do in person. Rick was doing a bit of live printing of t-shirts and posters using a design Rick put together. We also had the wonderful Cori from BiBimBop Bowl serving up delicious Korean eats. So far so good right? Meh, not so much. FIrst we had a visit from a girl who was clearly some kind of manic/ bi-polar / (insert some form of behavioral or emotional issue here). She showed up announcing that she was the DJ and that she was ready to go on. The only problem was that we never booked a DJ and have never seen this person before in our lives. She then proceeded to find Steph and Tess and explain to them that she was suffering an "existential crisis" and that just being there was really not good for her mental and emotional stability. Wow! I think at this point I should have stepped in as a boss and showed her the door. But, I was equal parts interested and apprehensive as I didn't want her to create a huge scene. It was only later when she started bringing in all kinds of shit and building a crazy shrine in the corner that my curiosity turned to complete shock and amazement. It reminded me of the scene from Pick Floyd The Wall when Pink loses his shit and trashes his hotel room and starts building some crazy sculpture on the floor as he descends into madness. But, in the end she was the least of our problems. As the night progressed and the place got more, and more packed some of us started getting a funny vibe about the crowd. They started becoming not at all interested in the show and more interested in drinking. Again, food for thought here but I should have stepped in and shut it down. But, I thought I'd let it play out. Anyway, after Steph, Oliver and Tess and I left it got even more hairy. Apparently, one of the revelers decided to have a pee on our neighbor's front steps. Who does that? Our neighbor was none too keen to this and called the dude out on it. I think the dude got a little bit mouthy and not at all repentant and so the neighbor busted him in the chops. I can't say I wouldn't go the same route myself in that situation. Anyway, the punchee called the cops on US! Who does that? And, then of course the drunken rabble decided that they were being oppressed somehow and started yelling at the cops. This could have become even uglier had Sarah one of the other owners not been so impressively deft in diffusing the situation. The cops quickly realized that the dumb asses did not speak for nor represent what our gallery is about. They were very helpful and ended up giving us some good advice in the end. In the end I only wish we got that on film. Anyway, the show runs throughout the month and you should probably make your way down and buy stuff.

New Show at the Gallery

We're hosting a new show down at the old gallery. It's an SF inspired photo show. Come visit us down at Big Umbrella Studios on June 10 or up, depending on what part of town you live. I'm also on board for this one and will be putting a few pieces in. Now if that isn't reason enough to go I don't know what is.

Austin in the springtime. It's effing hot!

Last weekend Steph and I went to Austin Tx. so she could vend at the Renegade craft fair. It promised to be a quick and dirty trip. I didn't want to burn vacation time on this one so we ended up leaving Friday after I got off work and I had to leave on Sunday evening. Unfortunately, we happened to be in the one Texas city that was supposed to actually be somewhat fun and I certainly wouldn't have mined a few extra days to hang out.. Mind you I have already been to San Antonio and I'm not a fan. Houston on the other hand was a decent place. In summary: Austin, it's fucking hot. It's uber humid and then it's gets a bit scorching at the same time. Ugh! The craft fair was fine and dandy. I got to swipe credit cards. We had some seriously epic BBQ. I mean amazing! Lastly, we had some delicious crawfish and a crazy maple bacon doughnut from an airstream food truck called Gordough's. One of the best parts of the trip: Eating terrible late night pizza with Steph in the room after we finally made it to the hotel and bonding with the cabbie on the way to the airport about owning the same Bauhaus T shirt and creepers in high school. Sweet! The worst part of the trip: The Austin airport plays nothing but country music and all their shops close early. Bummer.

Gallery News

We've undertaken a little bit of a DIY approach to re-imagining our little gallery, Big Umbrella Studios. It's an adventure to say the least. Only about half us are skilled in any kind of woodworking and there isn't a ton of money to invest in these updates. But, we're making the best of it. We're trying to maximize the potential of the space, to bring it a bit beyond the gallery/ studio concept that it's always been. We're building out custom fixtures for our new retail store front. We're painting the ugly, dingy, yucky floors and we've added classes and more events to list of functions our gallery serves. I'll post updates as they happen.


Last night we got our heads around the floor painting portion of the plan. It turned out looking better than we'd thought, not to mention being easier than we thought. So we got around to some hi-jinx last night and I thought I'd upload them to our new Vimeo channel.


The Stunt from Big Umbrella Studios on Vimeo.


Rick's Big Job from Big Umbrella Studios on Vimeo.


Also, we have a new show coming on June 10. I have a couple of photos in the show as well. Go, go, go!

Umami burger in L.A.


It was a hit. I'm putting it up there with Slow Club/ Serpentine and Gotts. The bun is epic.


Wherever you go, there you are

Deliciousity of the Noshings

On Saturday for Mother's day we went Steph's family to Michael Mina. I'll sum up by saying I had pork three ways and delicious wine. I have no complaints. I also got my mom the Nike/ iPod running accessory which is quite fitting as she's taken up doing half marathons, which I find really cool.

On Friday, Steph and I went to what is quickly becoming my favorite Ramen place in the city, Sawaii Ramen. I always get the spicy garlic Tonkatsu Ramen. I love that they have such nice little extras such as pork belly, which I usually get. But on this night they had pork cheek. Had to get it. It was thinly sliced and delicious. If only they would add marrow bones to ramen! Also on the menu was a cut of Himachi that I hadn't tried, nor seen before actually. Hamchi belly. I have to say it was amazing. It's wan't quite as fatty as Toro, but it still had that similar butter-like mouthfeel and it was about half the price. I'm totally sold on this cut.

On Sunday I worked on some epic gallery projects as we work to update the space. Baby steps yo!

Just a quick link to a post about the new opening at mah Gallery

Go here to catch up on all the action over at Big Umbrella Studios - which I co-own and thus am highly invested in doing terribly obvious fluff pieces about it here on my own personal blog.

Also here are some pics from the event.

Londublin and Irish need not apply.

Phew!


 It's been a minute or two since I last felt like putting pen to ink. It's been a blur. In the late summer Steph and I and the girls moved into a much larger house with more space near the ocean. The trade off is that we live in a real live neighborhood with a million kids running up and down the street and consequently, driving our dogs insane. I get my own basement though. I get to make it into my Goth den of solitude. There are a million things to do to the house to make it in our own image. We'll get them done eventually.

In the fall I went on Steph's book tour up and down the West Coast. It was my job to run the slide show. Also, I had never been to Portland before. We ate some tasty donuts and got caught in some rain. So there was that.

In December I became a co-owner of Big Umbrella Studios, a small local gallery on Divisadero St. here in San Francisco. It's a lot of work but we're trying to take it to the next level. I doubt it will ever be able to be my sole "job" but it's been fun. My screen printing business, The Lords of Print, is going well. That stands a better chance of being my sole "job" if the right card playing idiom is used.

 I had another birthday in January. I tried to stop it. It was relentless. I was overpowered.

The Ricky Gervais Show season 2 started. That means more Karl Pilkington for me to listen to. That's a good thing.


 A couple of weeks ago we got to have a sweet vacation. I think my favorite thing to do in the whole world is travel across that same whole world and I'm always ready to go anywhere with bells on. Originally, there was supposed to be a trip involving Egypt, which is on my list of Epic places that I must go. Sadly, it didn't transpire. Actually considering the fact that a semi-violent revolution was occurring right around the planned time of departure it seems rather fortuitous now. Since we weren't going we decided to have a make up trip. There was the idea of Japan being bandied about. Steph was kind of leaning towards this as she wanted to do lot's of shopping. I spent nearly a month in Japan about 13 years ago. I liked it and thought it was good fun. Again, fortune shined upon us for not selecting that destination. Ultimately, we settled on going to London and Dublin. That seemed like a sure thing. Unless Germany decided to launch some V1 rockets across the channel again I figured London was a done deal. Although I haven't been to London in about 20 years, Steph has been more recently. She happened to have some family in London and a visit with them coincided perfectly. Neither of us had been to Dublin, and I really wanted to go to Ireland.


Our 10 day romp through Southern England and Dublin was action packed, or at least packed with food to say the least. We were also gifted with some amazing weather. While it rained for almost the entire time back home, we were confronted with some very mild, sunny, spring weather.

The first day we arrived, we ended up staying right near Victoria station so as to catch the Gatwick Express early the next morning. Usually, when we land somewhere Steph is in no mood to go out for adventures. I on the other hand am always giddy and I need to go walk around. I took a long stroll around Westminster Abby and Big Ben and then over to Buckingham Palace. I had visited all these sites years ago, and even though I didn't need to go inside I still felt excited to be near them. In case I've never mentioned I am quite the history buff. It was always my favorite subject in school and I still get very captivated when standing in the presence of something that has silently seen so much history pass before it. After a good long walk I head back to hotel, random Cornish pasty in hand, to take Steph to dinner. We decided that since it was Sunday, and there wasn't much open late in our hood that we should have Sunday roast at a pub. It was fine and all that. But, what we noticed above all else was a detail that seemed to be a theme that wove itself into almost every facet of our trip. Apparently, English people have vacated their homes. There simply aren't any of them left in London. I think they should rename it New Serbia. The staff of the very traditional looking pub were very Eastern Euro. It seemed just about every customer facing staff member in all of London was a representative of some former Soviet bloc country. Funny story about this. In Wicklow, we wanted to grab a snack. The girl at the counter was heavily Eastern European. I ordered "fries" and she gave me a blank stare. A local had to say "chips" for me. Classic. This brings me to the topic of finding it hard to say "chips" instead of "fries" or "shop" instead of "store" when I know very well what the local colloquialisms are. It's just that I don't want to be perceived as though I'm trying to seem too local. I'm not a Brit, we call them fries here and that's just how it is. We still understand each other in the end. Although, the difference between "pants" and "trousers" was explained to us. I found that to be interesting. Oh, and my favorite. The slight but not so slight difference in the meaning of the word "fanny" is classic. Never say to a British girl "Damn, girl! I'd sure like to smack that fanny of yours!"


The next morning we were off to begin our Irish adventure. On the train to Gatwick I enjoyed a very British bacon sandwich, a bacon butty if you will, and a little taste of home, a Starbucks latte. The sandwich was delicious. I wanted to eat four of them. Part of the reason for going to Ireland was the fact that we got a good deal from Ryanair, the notorious ala carte airline. They have a reputation for charging for everything possible. We kind of screwed up and ended up bringing luggage that was far too heavy and we were forced to buy an extra duffle bag, which came in handy anyway, and then using my spare bag to repack a second bag. There we were in the middle of the airport on the floor repacking our bags and looking like the tourists we were. To send two extra bags it cost us 140 British Pounds. That was probably more expensive than the two round trip tickets. I found Ireland to be very quaint and I found it fun to just wander the streets. I had always resisted the idea that Guiness was somehow different in Ireland, but it was. I thought it was much smoother and cleaner tasting. I got my historical geekery in by visiting the Book of Kells, a 1200 year old handwritten bible. It fascinates me to imagine that not very may people in the year 800 could read and write and the ones that could spent their lives transcribing the bible by hand. The fan favorite of the trip seems to be the Leprechaun museum. This little farce of a museum turned out to be epic! The intention of the museum was to be first and foremost interactive and a close second was information. You basically wander from room to room steeped in Irish lore. Of course the best room and the one of note was the room of gigantic furniture. Truly insane it was. Imagine a low lit room filled with 10 foot tall chairs and side tables, because that's what it was. You are meant to feel what it must feel like as a Leprechaun in the world of man. If you couldn't climb a fucking chair without looking like an asshole you'd be pissed off all the time and in no mood to share any gold either. I realized just how out of shape I am in attempting to climb one of these fucking chairs. Especially when Steph's cousin Victor is in totally good yoga shape and leaped and bounded atop those fuckers. There I was looking like the aforementioned asshole. Within the span of our three day trip to Dublin, Steph brought up the fact that we really weren't seeing the Ireland as presented to us in Ned Devine. We were in a city, there were no rolling green, sheep filled meadows to speak of. So we said fuck it and rented a car. I needed the practice anyway for our imminent London car rental. We ended up in a lousy little Kia. It was a stick shift. Steph was none too happy as I tried to shift and pay attention to the road at the same time. I think the fact that I was operating completely in reverse of what is now muscle memory made her nervous. For example, everytime I wanted to use the turn signal I ended up turning on the windshield wipers. WTF? We eventually got out onto the motorway and drove south until we ran out of Daylight somewhere near Wicklow. It was pretty but I wish that we would have left sooner and were able to get to Galway and other places farther afield. The great thing about Ireland seems to be that you can get to any part within a couple of hours. On that same day we had dinner reservations at The Pigs Ear which I found while looking for food porn type places in Dublin. We had a reservation at 8 pm. We made it back to Dublin with time to spare. The only problem is that we didn't really know where to park the car. We must have circled our hotel for at least a half hour. I felt like we were the Griswalds in European Vacation, "look kids Big Ben, Parliment. I can't get left!" Pigs Ear was amazing. It was upscale and yet very comfy. The food was a modern Irish menu. The presentation was great. Each dish came in things like mason jars and copper pots etc. I had a crab salad starter and then Salmon for my main. We were super full to say the least. The next morning before we left we went to the Boxty House in Temple Bar and had a very nice Full Irish breakfast, with sausage, bacon, eggs, fried tomato and black pudding. It was perfect and I left Ireland smiling. Also, let me just say this. The Dublin airport is crazy. It has more stores than I've ever seen in an airport. It felt like a shopping mall, that also sold airplane rides.

Back to London, only this time we were super lucky because cousin Victor had extra space in his luggage for all of our extra luggage which meant a ton of shit for him to carry but for us it meant saving 140 British Pounds. Nice! The next leg of our London adventure was at a hotel on Piccadilly near Green park and Piccadilly Circus etc. I'm not one to complain about hotel rooms. All I care about is that the location is good and that it's clean. Other than that I don't care. Steph and cousin Victor thought the bathroom was too old. I guess if you're paying for something then you want it to be a certain way. I'm easy going. It was also very close to one of the most amazing, and uber high end food emporiums I have ever seen, Fortnum and Mason I can't even begin to describe this place. It sort of reminded me of the Disneyland ride "Its a Small World." I wouldn't have thought it weird to have boarded a little boat and listed down some fabled imaginary river through a land of Candy and sweets. The next major food event was a breakfast reservation at the Wolseley where I had the awesome full English breakfast. Have I mentioned how much I love a meal with the word full in front of it? Well I do. The inside of this place is just about as posh as you can get. Apparently it's one of John Cleese's favorite haunts. I didn't see him. Again, more black pudding.  On the subject of pudding, we learned that Brits call dessert, pudding, as in "what's for pudding tonight?" Or, "this restaurant has the best fucking puddings ever!" Yeah, I had no idea. Another restaurant we ended up going to was a two Michelin starred place called Pied a Terre. We had the extensive tasting menu which was very good but my favorite was the wine flight I ordered. It was about a seven course menu and they served me a full glass with each course. That plus the Bellini I had to begin the meal and I was trashed. I kept it professional though. The best part was that the Sommelier made a game out of it by not revealing the wine until I had guessed the region of origin. Intéressant, I did fairly well at this. I certainly nailed the dessert or should I say "pudding" wine by exclaiming confidently "Portugal!" The get the fuck out of here wine of the evening belonged to Brazil though. I have never tasted a Brazilian wine nor really thought of Brazil in that light.They must stump everyone on that one. Sommelier humor, I'll never understand it.

The next day we discovered food porn Nirvana in the form of Borough Market It was just epic. So much food. If we hadn't had dinner plans that evening I would have just stayed there all day, eating. The highlight for me was the Raclette cheese stand. It was simply wonderful. They had half wheels of the stuff sitting under specialized Raclette heating elements that melt the top layer of the cheese. It's typically served over potatoes and pickles, which they had. But we opted for the grilled cheese version. Fucking yeah! Another highlight of our food adventures was a trip to a pie shop for a Steak and ale pie with mashed potatoes and mushy peas.

On Saturday, Steph had a book signing at a a little craft shop on Carnaby st. It was nice to see that she drew a nice little crowd and they wanted her to stay and hang out. And hang out she did. It was fine though. I ran all up and down the Carnaby st. area and got to watch a bit of the huge 400,000 strong protest march that was happening. It was also cool to see a little bit of home by wandering into Upper Playground. We also had little excursions to Shoreditch (Mission District London) and Camden town.I wish I would have had the chance to eat some Indian food over on Brick Lane. I'm guessing those are some proper curries.

Apologies, as my recounting of events is chronologically out of sequence. But, only Steph would really know this so it's not a problem. We moved hotels for the last time, over to a neighborhood called Bayswater. It seemed like a cool area, lots of little restaurants in what seemed to be an area where Londoners actually lived. This is also when we rented our car. The most awesome car ever! I usually don't really care about cars. They don't really matter to me. But, we were given a brand new Citroen DS3 It had six miles on it. Again, much to Steph's chagrin it was a manual transmission. But to me it was epic. It was so quick and responsive and I wish we had Citroens at home. Those French peeps sure can make a car. The only weird thing about it was - no cup holders. I got over that though. We took off in the Citroen for a nice little road trip. Ever since I was a kid I have been fascinated by Stonehenge. Again, history nerdiness. I find it amazing that people 5000 years ago made this. I also love that the area it's in is this very, very English looking stretch of green meadow. There are no hotels built up across the street from it and there are no shopping malls etc looming over it. I feel like it looks much the same as it did all those years ago. When I look at things like that I like to imagine myself staring at it during different eras in history. Occasionally I'll ask people if they could travel time would they go forward or back. Most people seem to say forward, but I think I would go back. Anyway, Some people seem put off by the fact that you can't touch the rocks of Stonehenge. I'm of the opinion that you shouldn't touch things of antiquity, or handle them as little as possible. I'd like to think things like this will help the site to last another few thousand years. After a walk around the structure we grabbed a veggie pasty and headed off to Brighton. Steph and I both wanted to check out Brighton. I like the kind of Victorian look of the place and I also love the fight scene from Quadrophenia a great deal. Which reminds me. If I could swap out all of my clothes for a complete Mod makeover I would. Anyway, by the time we got to Brighton it was late, the stores had closed but we got to see the sunset and at least walk around. I have to say I like Brighton. It's a nice change of pace for only being 45 minutes from London. Before we left we walked around the Notting Hill area as it was really close to our hotel. It's a really quaint little area and does look picturesque. We took the Paddington Express to Heathrow and that was that. All in all a very fun way to spend 10 days. It's also nice being able to speak the language. It makes it so much easier, especially when watching TV at night. Speaking of British TV. I got into this horrible show called "Your Face or Mine." Incredible! I am surprised that this show isn't in development over here. It is a show dedicated to superficiality and greed. It's basically a game show. A couple in a relationship is on stage and then for example they will bring another girl on stage and the guy has to say whether he thinks the audience will say the other woman is better looking than his girlfriend. The incentive to do so is that if he's right, the couple wins money. The quandary it puts the people in is classic. If he says he thinks his GF is hotter, he's lying and then he will lose money but if he tells the truth and says "the other girl is hotter" then the GF isn't too thrilled with him. So he's either broke or he's just admitted he thinks his lady is far less hot than some other girl. He can't win. It gets even better when they stop bringing out strangers and start bringing in people the couple actually knows. When the girls BFF sits down is when the magic begins, especially if the BFF is hotter than the GF. Also, I watched a couple of episodes of a show called London 2012. It's a comedy that seems to be about an incompetent London Olympic committee trying to get London ready for the upcoming Olympics. Hilarious.

That's London and Dublin for you now please enjoy a great many out of sequence pics.  P.S. Some of the pics are gigantor, because I like when you can see peoples pores. Anyway, just click on them to see all of their glory. Otherwise it's starting to look like cousin Vic is owning all of these pics. He's totally not. I am.