A large town in Germany

It really should not have surprised anyone. Given the early rising the day before, and the fact that we still had not adjusted time zones, we slept in very late. And then we blundered around slowly, like dinosaurs, trying to get organised.
The plan for the day was simple. Due to some miscommunication, one of the 3 device chargers we had brought had the wrong form of connector. This led to endless mild squabbles over rights to the other two, which tended to erode my vacation-reduced patience, leading in consequence to an agreement to go to the local Apple store to purchase the requisite gadget (thus shutting me up).
The U-Bahn trip was painless, and I was optimistic as we ascended the stairs at the Friedrichstrasse station. This, I thought to myself, should be easy; but I wonder what ll that loud techno music is for?

Berlin Pride. Of course we need to be on the far side….

And when we got to street level I reassessed my estimation. We were in the middle of the Berlin gay pride parade (of course the Apple store was on the far side) complete with buses full of folk looking like they were auditioning for roles in the Village People, along with other people on the pavement, dressed in even more striking fashions. Or completely undressed, in some cases, which was a bit of a surprise.
I saw a bunch of people in t-shirts with CSD on them. I dimly remembered that this was some german political party, and and was mildly surprised that the political party was so prominent in a pride parade.
Only later did I discover that Pride day in Germany is known as Christopher Street Day, thus CSD.
DUH me. Wrong again.
We managed to get the gadget from the Apple store, and after getting completely lost for a while, in the cheering masses, I managed to get us up to the Brandenburg gate (where it looked like the parade was ending) via the Holocaust

Cloudy at the Bramdenburg gate

Memorial and a detour through the edge of the Tiergarten. The Memorial was rather grey and grim, as fitting; the Tiergarten cool and green and a touch unmanicured, very refreshing on a hot day full of crowds, and the Gate is a large stone edifice with a lady in a chariot on top. Monumental architecture really is not my thing, though I do like the statuary.
Feeling a little ragged by then, we stopped by the Hotel Adlon (I had to because it is mentioned so often in Alan Furst books) where the dynamic duo filled up on ice creams of the fanciest sort, and I ate stew, because I should not eat ice cream. Does not mean I was terribly happy about it.

I got no idea where that soviet guy put up the hammer and sickle

We wandered off again, to see the Riechstag (didn’t tour because there was a significant wait, and I still cannot figure out which end of the building the picture with the chap hanging up the hammer and sickle was taken) and further down through the edge of the Tiergarten to the soviet war memorial, which is very large and Soviet looking.
Grabbed a taxi back to the hotel, on the way noticing again the flowers on apartment balconies. It seems like many german apartments have small balconies, and on many of them are profusion of window boxes, sometimes a riot of color, and sometimes not. I do like to think one can tell the age of the inhabitants by the plants on their balconies, geraniums are the elderly, maybe and grasses younger people (no, not those grasses). Probably not, though.

Flowerpots on balconies

We went to restaurant More for dinner. Karin did not know this when she chose it, some time before, but it was in a gay neighborhood, so there was a lot going on when we arrived with people in costume and the rest of it. We enjoyed an excellent german meal, with wonderful service during which we discussed the next day’s activities. We decided that going to Museum Island would be a good idea, though the expression on Karin’s face when we explained the contents of the five museums was a bit of a study. Not much of an antiquarian, our Karin.
We then set off to find a cab back to the hotel. The streets were crowded with ex- and current pride celebrants, with the odd leather shop there too (a bit of an eye opener for the 17 year old).

Well, this I a bit of a surprise on a quiet residential street

We managed to get a taxi back to the hotel, which only confirmed my resolution to get some form of multi day public transport ticket as soon as possible, because I was sure that this guy was going to kill us. I felt the same way about the one in the afternoon, they drove like suicidal maniacs for whom traffic regulations were something that happened to someone else.

We woke the next day and Karin took us off to a breakfast buffet. Now, for me, German breakfasts ave always been simple affairs. Good coffee, cold meat, maybe an egg, some bread; I must admit I was confused when she first mentioned a breakfast buffet. How could this be different, I thought? Well, it wasn’t really. but it was terribly good; this is the place.
We then trotted on down to Museum Island…. along with everyone else, it seemed. It was a hot day, and the lines for most of the museums were prohibitive. We ended going to the Alte Museum (mostly full of Egyptian stuff) and enjoyed it, and hung around outside for while, looking at the people and listening to the street performers (who really are very good).

Kultur is to be found on museum island

All cultured out, we departed in search of the old east german TV tower (which we saw. shaped rather like a scallion, I think and very 1960s), and some lunch, which we managed in a rather interesting self serve place where one ordered on what looked like an iPad mini and then picked one’s food up from a window. In honor of the whole Berlin Experience thing, I had a currywurst which I approached with a deal of hesitation, but which turned out to be rather yummy. Some sort of combination of ketchup, curry powder, and I think Worcester sauce on a sausage, how bad can this be?

Curry wurst tastes better than it looks

I confirmed my tourism-ness by getting us thoroughly lost on the way bak to the hotel, so we confined our later activities to a quick trip to an Irish bar (someone wanted some cider) and some very good asian food in a restaurant near the hotel.
Up and on to more tourist stuff the next day. At least partially. We decided to hit up Checkpoint Charlie so Karin could relive her previous visit (there was aa wall then. For all I know there were dinosaurs and cavemen also It was some time ago). This proved fairly interesting, but pretty much the most touristy place we saw, with a lot of souvenir stores. there is a little exhibit there, though with a lot of photographs blown up, and information and data about the wall.

Checkpoint Charlie

Walked from there to the Jewish museum. which I found interesting, but frustratingly organised, The building itself was designed as part of the exhibit, and the recondite layout of the building, with odd corridors and low rooms, while probably full of meaning for someone, for me just served to break up and in some cases conceal the interesting contents. I found it quite frustrating (and if some bright spark is going to come over tome and tell me that being frustrated is part of the experience, I’m going to have conversation with them about the purpose of museums)
We decided to walk to the Brandenburg gate again, and that took us through the ritzy government area of the city, where the family discovered a fancy chocolate shop (to the betterment of my rapidly spreading waistline, I stayed outside while they bought stuff) and some very nice shopping areas which were noted for future exploration.
We decided to eat Austrian food for dinner, in a restaurant in Charlotteburg. The meal was wonderful, and we went and returned from the place on public transport, having acquired some form of three day pass earlier in the day.
Public transport in Berlin is enormous. There are buses (never got on one of them), trams (light rail, if you prefer, I suppose, we used that a bit), U-Bahn (underground rail, used this a lot), S-Bahn (above ground rail, more or less like the U-Bahn but no tunnels), and something called Bahn which I think is DB and therefore longer distance trains.
Managing this would be completely impractical without the handy-dandy free app that is available that allows one to plan your route. Even with the benefit of this, however, there was a number of times we found ourselves looking for particular lines we knew were there, for some considerable time (where the hell is the U6 springs to mind). So be warned.
The next day we hd decided to go and see the Potsdam Palace complex. This is in a park some ways outside Berlin, so we had nice ride on the Bahn regional train, seeing countryside as well as suburbs and small towns.

The new palace. Apparently the row of statues at the top was to impress visitors

The chinoiserie in Potsdam Park. That’s what I call a folly

The park itself is marvelous, with a combination of parkland and maintained gardens, with palace spread through it and the odd wonderful folly. The Sans Souci, Frederick the Great’s palace, is a wonderful place, at the top of a vineyard terrace, complete with fountains. The building itself is small (for a palace) but very pretty, and painted that yellow ochre colour I always with central european government buildings, with a great semi-circular colonnade on the side that isn’t terraced.
We ate in a park restaurant, narrowly escaping the chap who was setting up in the corner with two laptops to do karaoke versions of 1960s German dance tunes. As we left and looked back through the windows, we saw a number of elderly yet still sprightly folk dancing to tunes of half a century ago, or more. I do not begrudge them their fun, but I would not care to have listened to it over lunch either.

There has to be ducks, or it’s not a park

Potsdam ate most of the day, though very enjoyable, so the evening consisted of a trip to the Jolly restaurant near museum island (why were we eating asian food? It was hot out, and we were tired, and needed something light, I think) and a stagger back to the hotel.
The stagger was illuminated by wandering along Oranienburger Tor where it amused me to watch my 17 year old son discover that prostitution is legal in Germany, by dint of seeing a number of young women who were pursuing their trade. They didn’t bother anyone, they were just standing there, dressed as one would expect. Im sure it will give him something to tell his friends about.
The practicalities of travel caught up with us the next day. Socks and underwear was running short, so some was washed and we attempted to dry it with the dryer in the hotel bathroom. Which worked for about 35 seconds, before stopping. We hung the stuff up and left.
We left slowly. We had been walking about 8 to 10 miles a day, and I had managed to develop a stunning blister on my right foot, so I intended to limit my activities as best I could. The other two tended to streak off ahead, leaving me hobbling along. In fits of generosity they would wait for me every so often.
The son had decided to go off and see the Video game museum, and we were going shopping. He went with serious expression and a transit ticket, and we wet into malls. Or galleria, or whatever one calls them when they are in the middle of the city.
The shopping was mostly unsuccessful (we got some souvenirs) the high points being Karin deciding to get a manicure, and me sitting in some form of german designed accident-waiting-to-happen disguised as a seat, which made a solid attempt to dump me on the back of my head, causing everyone in the place to laugh hysterically.
And then Karin had to call off the manicure in media res, as she claimed the nice young lady was trying to pull her fingernails off. Not a great success.
We ate lunch with a collection of well groomed and dressed German business folk in the great Borchardt Restaurant, probably lowering the tone of the place significantly.
Then, burdened with less bags than we had hoped for or expected, we headed back.
Another thing to note about Berlin is the profusion of well behaved dogs. They are everywhere, on the public transport, at the back of shops, quietly sitting and not bothering anyone, except the allergic, I suppose. We had even noticed a young man training a puppy on the train out to Potsdam, teaching him to sit quietly and not bother anyone. It really seems like a good idea.
We dined at an Austrian restaurant near the hotel, as we had to leave for Prague early the next day.
We had noticed, in Berlin, the fact that every restaurant and bar had tables outside. Even if you only had a seat on a strip of concrete with a superb view of the building site across the narrow street, they were still sitting outside. I’m an inside sort of chap, myself, and the benefits of this were clearly displayed when the people sitting outside the window we were at where deluged by water from some apartment about, causing much yelling in german (I have no idea what was said, unfortunately) and the restauranteur putting out his awning (presumably to prevent a recurrence).
It’s nice to be right every so often.

Perfectly normal day in Berlin, right?

Fish and Trains

Sleep seemed to be in short supply our first night in Copenhagen. No one appeared to manage very much sleep, though it really was not the fault of the accommodations. We were staying in the Astor Apartments, which was a rather nice self contained unit, with kitchenette (we completely failed to use it). On top of the unused cooking facilities was access from both sides of the apartment to a roof deck, which while shared, gave wonderful views out over the city.
Given my rather tired state, I must admit I embarked on Karin’s aggressive tourist program with some trepidation. She wanted to visit the Rosenborg Castle to see the gardens and treasures, and Graeham wanted to go and have a look at the Kastallet near the harbour, which we had seen the night before.
Added to this was a necessary visit to the creperie of the night before. Due to some technical error they had contrived to charge us in Swiss Francs rather than Danish Kroner for our meal. That had turned the thing from “great dinner” to “jaw droppingly expensive” as the Kroner is more or less 7 to the dollar, and the Swiss Franc 1. This indicated a revisit to get it sorted out.
In any case, off we went, grabbing a cup of coffee and a sandwich at one of the many coffee bars the city seems to contain.

Not so much castle, as country house. Not in the country, of course

The weather was sunny and pleasant, if not terribly warm, the cyclists as present and as carefree as the day before, and the walk to Rosenborg Castle was soon done. The place was guarded by gentlemen in fatigues carrying M16s (their barracks was next door) so apparently the Danish Royal treasure was worth looking out for.
And indeed it was. The tour of the treasure was separate from the tour of the castle (which is not a castle as I think of it, it was built in the early 17th century as a residence and used for about 100 years until something fancier was made). The treasure lives in the basement (an old wine cellar) and is large and varied; carved ivory, amber, hunting crossbows and firearms much inlaid, china, and, in an actual vault room the crowns and regalia themselves. The Danish Royal family have been around a while, so there is quite a bit of it, very impressive in all; apparently one needs to refresh the old crown jewels every couple of hundred years or so.
I found the tour of the building itself a little odd. It was dark in there, not completely, but something that would take some time to get used too, coming in from a sunlit day. This was not aided by som of the rooms being wood paneled and covered in flemish oil paintings. And, then, oddly for me, the rooms were not all consistently decorated. There were rooms from the 17th century, and then other rooms from the 18th, up through the 19th.

17th Century propaganda movie. In cloth. If you can affored the artists.

The top floor was one large reception room, with thrones at each end, full of tapestries from a late 17th century war with the Swedes. Apparently, whoever the Danish bloke in charge was, he decided bringing along artists to memorialize his military adventures would be a good plan. A large series of tapestries is the result.
From there we went on to the Kastellet, which is a 18th century 5 pointed star fort overlooking the harbour. Interestingly, still in use by the Danish military, though one does wonder about Wi-Fi reception in 18th century barracks. And running water, but whatever.
The fort itself was complete; earth walls, angled with a flooded ditch, and a covered way on the inland side, and the main gate covered at the far end by a redoubt.
By now we were stunningly tired and a return to the hotel with a stop for a bit to eat was indicated. We needed (or at least I needed) a rest before dinner.
On the way back we stopped at the creperie, and indicated with the aid of last night’s receipt, that we had been slightly overcharged. when the poor people got over their initial horror (when they worked out how much that was in Krone, they ware aghast) much technologic jiggery-pokery was indulged in to rectify the problem. Which is not yet rectified, when I last checked, because we have now been credited twice for the error, and they are our money. One hopes the credit card company will sort it out soon.
Karin had made reservations at Kødbyens Fiskebar, which was a fish place she had found on the internet, close to the hotel (which was just as well, because my legs felt like they had been worn away to stumps).

It’s a fish dinner

So we walked over finding the restaurant in a slightly trendier neighborhood than the hotel is in. It was very trendy inside as well, but any sins it committed offending my old-fogeyness were completely absolved by the wonderful meal they served us. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
At this stage the old people were done, but the young one showed signs of life. I suggested he head off to the Tivoli gardens to go on rides or otherwise get himself in trouble. A little alarming to let ones teenager trundle off on his on in a strange city, but I had done it, so why not him?
He reappeared at 1:30am, muttering about meeting some girls, and having fun.
I don’t want to know
The next day we arose very early to haul our stuff to the train station, and hop on a train to Berlin. Copenhagen deserved more time, but we had really only gone there as it was the terminus for the cheapest flight, so on to Berlin for us.
The adults were fairly unserviceable at this stage due to fatigue, and it was as well that there was a Starbucks open in the train station able to provide caffeine, or I am sure it would have ended poorly, with us in Milan or something.
Also of assistance were more linguistically talented Danes (I am so humbled by these folk, its bloody mortifying) pointing out that only the first two carriages of the train went on the boat to Berlin, so we needed to move up the platform. Which we did, with thanks.
The train came, we got on, and found our seats. Shortly afterward we were also found by a charming lady, who spoke at least 4 languages, who claimed they were her seats. This would not be good; but we both had competing pieces of stuff claiming the real estate.
By right of “we got here first” I suggest we wait for a railway employee, too which she agreed, though burdened by children and husbands and similar deadweight. So we waited for someone to come in growing nervousness, but still convinced of the rightness of our cause.
Until her husband returned, with more paper, and a discussion took place, resulting in her telling me that her tickets were cancelled, and she had the wrong pieces of paper. From the look she gave him, I suspect her spouse was in for “meeting without coffee” sometime in the near future. I was as happy just to see them go.
The way we were sitting on the train we ended up going backward at about 100 mph. I cannot recall having done this before, though I may have, and I found the current experience a little alarming. Whitewashed county churches, the seagulls swooping over the fields and flagpoles (a lot of flagpoles, USA levels of flagpolehood) appeared beside me and zoomed into the distance in the reverse of what I am accustomed to. It was a little unsettling.
The allotments zoomed by also. There was a bunch of them (in Germany also, I noticed); small enclosures by the railway tracks, some gardens, some kitchen gardens, some just a piece of lawn with a swing set in it. Products of an apartment dwelling culture, I suppose.
Also noticeable was the graffiti. There was, to my eyes, a lot of graffiti in Denmark. It was not bad, just noticeable. In the city itself, as well as along the railway tracks.
One wonders are there just a lot of street artists? Or do they just not care to clean it up?In any case, we reached the ferry (something that had been regarded with much unhappiness by Karin), the train got on the ferry, and we had a quick 45 minute trip over a sea as smooth as glass. Even she admitted that it was painless; we then zoomed through the German countryside at 200kmph for a very long time.
Arriving in Berlin Hbf. we decided immediately to take a taxi, because the bags were heavy and we were much too fuddled to try and figure out public transport. We arrived at the Tryp Hotel in Mitte (another trendy district. Karin made the reservations, and we’re in trendy districts. I’m more or less the anti trendy, trendy is destroyed on contact with me; I wonder is she trying to tell me something?).
In any case we walked from the hotel to get some late lunch; ending up walking along the course of the Berlin wall, and reaching the place we wanted, which turned out to be a local bar with very good beer and fried food, and not a lot of linguistic expertise. We managed by pointing and sign language and everyone was very good natured about it.
Being terribly tired we wandered back to the hotel to plan the rest of the day. This turned out to involve an involuntary nap, from which Karin did not awaken easily, so I took the son out to a local cafe for more good fried food and some wonderful chicken paprikash.
On the way back we picked up some take out doer kebab for Karin, which she enthused wildly about when we got it to her. Just as well, as I was done walking.

Hans Christian Who?

The flight from Chicago to Copenhagen went as such things do, for me. I am a couple of sizes too large for the standard airline seat which makes sleeping fairly impractical; especially when sitting beside someone who is not small either (in this case my son). I either need smaller children or not to sit beside them on aeroplanes. The legroom was adequate on SAS however, at least meaning when the flight was over I could stand up. The food was adequate also, if unexceptional; and in the case of airline food I am inclined to think that “adequate and unexceptional” is a good combination.
We had the initial shock of seeing small children in the rows behind us,

and in front of us, a circumstance regarded by all right thinking people with horror. It did not turn out that badly though, though the one behind us cried enough to remind me of how the sound changes when children have cried for so long they are exhausted, something I had happily forgotten.
We got through the airport without major incident, and got into a taxi for the hotel. Karin had booked us into an apartment like place near the railway station, which turned out to be quite fun, save for being on the sixth floor and having an elevator that was tiny; we have to use it in shifts, making coming back to the place rather an evolution, as no-one is that keen on walking up six flights.

Bikes. Need some? they got them here

We also noticed everyone appears to speak some English, which is good because we are linguistically challenged. There are english books in the stores, and even duplicate menus in english. Which all serves to make our lives easier, but one does wonder what the locals feel about it; surely it is somewhat intrusive?
So we sortied out for a walk, and coffee, and noticed a few things as we ambled along.
The first thing was bikes. there is a lot of bikes here, and they take it seriously with lanes, and specific traffic signals, and children mounted in receivers on the front of the vehicle, and delivery bikes with carrying areas in front. A lot of bikes. An alarming absence of bike bells however, leading me to be paranoid of their swift and silent approach.
Then the people. They are taller on average then in the USA; I am less above the average height here. The biking seems to keep them in better shape on average also, which is unsurprising. The clothing styles are not wildly different than I am used to, but different enough that it is noticeable. Also noticeable re the young folk in white peaked caps. Confused the heck out of me until I looked it up and found that it is some form of student cap, with the band colour denoting academic achievement of one form or another. Rather fun, really.
We went into Cafe Bjorg (missing all sorts of Scandinavian accents on that one) where we had a meal (completely time disoriented at this stage, and unable to tell you which meal it actually was, but it was good) and then went on a walk to see the obligatory Little Mermaid.

And you look up… it seemed to be an orthodox church, but it was not labelled

The streets are lined with older, lower buildings avoiding the “canyon” feeling, even when they are narrow. The buildings tend to be a consistent 5 or so stories, and line the sides of the roads joined together, keeping a reasonably consistent front along the street. Having sad that, sometimes one looks up and is greeted by the sight of guided onion domes, or spire, or a clock. the feel of the place 9or the parts we saw, at least) was certainly distinctive. Lots of copper roofs too.

As we walked we picked out a couple of places to visit the next day, at least framing somewhat of a list. We did see the mermaid, and had a look at couple of the things nearby including what looks to be an 18th century fortress, and a remarkable fountain with a statue a woman plowing the sea with a pair of oxen. I am going to have to take myself to the internets to figure what that is about.
After a restorative nap at the hotel (we had walked far, and it was early, or late, or something) we went out one last time and ate crepes at La Gallette. An excellent meal, followed by a stagger home and more sleep.

Ham, cheese, egg and caramelized onion in a crepe. How can this be bad?

Money for Gods sake

Karin and I are rather creatures of habit. Having found a place we liked for breakfast we continued to patronize it; to avoid the intellectual stigma of unoriginality, we went to their alternate location; on Canal Street, about 4 blocks from the one we had been to before, and within sight of the hotel. OK, OK, we did not try very hard to avoid the whole unoriginality thing, but it was early in the morning and there had not been coffee yet. Yeah, and I suspect it was not that early in the morning either. We were on vacation, after all.

We had decided before we went to New Orleans that some time would be devoted to antiquing; not that we are either particular fans of antiques, but because, some years ago, we found some light fixtures in a store on Royal Street that we both actually liked. Finding objects (be they d’art or completely mundane) that my wife and I both like is needle-in-the-haystack (or genuine unicorn poop, if you prefer) country, so it seems like a good idea to try and repeat the experience, even if only for novelty’s sake.

So off into the bowels of the French Quarter, walking from store to store, antique gallery to art gallery, and back again, as they sit in a neat little row along the street. And very illuminating (with reference to the light fixtures, of course) it was.

There was one place literally full of french chandeliers. When none of the ones on the ground floor overly enticed us, and hearing that we lived in an older farmhouse, the gentleman took us up in a freight elevator to see one on the third floor (yes, folks, thats at least 3 floors of rather horrid chandeliers, most of them with those terrible little pretend candle lights on them. Some even had the little white tubes with the fake melted wax on it). The one he wanted to show us was a early 20th century one, in wrought iron, complete with a surface patina of rust, (sufficient that on seeing it my first thought was of the date of my last tetanus booster) with downward facing bulbs (an indication of a display of affluence, he said) and little curly pig tails decorating it. Seriously, wrought iron little curly pig tails all over it.

I have no idea what I said to this chap to indicate that I had a complete amputation of my sense of taste, but I vowed to be more careful about what I said in future.

An art gallery we went into classified a rather gaudy splurgy creation with a 5 figure price tag as “affordable”; admittedly this was subsequent to being presented a rather ugly sketch by some lady friend of Picasso’s with a mid 5 digit price tag as some sort of bargain. We fled precipitously, wondering what we had said or done to indicate that we were in that sort of income bracket.

There were much more reasonable places though; had a nice chat and look around in the place we had found the light fixture that caused the search in the first place, though much of the conversation was about food; and in another place a nice young lady demonstrated (once more by means of a freight elevator) the differences between English antiques (plain, which I like, my wife derides, and the nice young lady tactfully described as an “acquired taste”) and the French ones (which I find gaudy, but of courts appeal to my wife). This place also had a complete set of paneling from a dining room in a small chateau somewhere in the south of France, set up so one could see it. One would have to build a house around it to actually use it, but very interesting all the same.

Fatigued by our efforts, we popped into the Carousel Bar for a reviving snifter (not sure my liver is going to forgive me for the New Orleans trip). In this place the circular bar actually revolves slowly around, giving the ultimate version of the “see and be seen” thing. We did not essay it, sticking to more mundane seats.

Having been pointed to Magazine Street as another shopping locale, we decided to take the bus up there to see what the story was. And a story it was too.

The shops along Magazine are eclectic in the extreme, even ignoring the odd boutiques and so on and so forth. They vary from places selling forms of imports from India (think Pier 1 with more taste) to places with antiques as such, to art galleries to places with shelf after shelf of mid century stuff we remembered from our childhoods (and were, of course, mildly interested to see that someone would consider buying it). All sorts of things, though, from clothes through jewelry and odd shoes to walking sticks. Honestly, I do not recall such a bizarre collection of “stuff” anywhere, ever.

Back down to the hotel to change for the evening’s meal, at Ivy (same executive chef as the night before, but small plates instead). Though our reservation had been lost somehow, we got a table (its the slow season in New Orleans in the summer) and enjoyed a wonderful meal, with a gray variety of flavors, very much to both our likings.

The meal was accompanied by a great deal of noise; there were two groups of ladies, both of whom who had looked upon wine when it was red, and were quite ummm raucous. All the same a wonderful meal, unspoiled by the untrammeled hilarity that surrounded us.

Ivy covered professors in ivy covered walls

Tuesday dawned cloudy. A very significant amount of time after that, we got up. It was still cloudy, and rather humid, which looked to persist all day.

After a helpful consultation with the doorman at the hotel (may his name forever be enshrined somewhere. Not by me, however, because I have no idea who the poor chap was) we headed off to The Ruby Slipper for breakfast.

There is something about the nature of the public spaces down here that pleases me. Tall rooms, and those interesting full length door/window combinations along the sides of the building. The difference to what one is accustomed too makes it a very pleasant change. And the food and staff in this place was wonderful too (so good we actually returned the next day). We succeeded in harassing the poor unfortunate hostess (like she did not have enough to worry about doing a particularly unpleasant job). Interesting enough, the couple for Sunday dinner, who we had run into on Monday also, showed up in the restaurant. The poor man fled, clearly thinking we were stalking him. His wife was suitably amused though, and she spoke with us.

Today was the day we had an appointment at Tulane, to begin our exploration of the “getting a kid out of the house” process. Would have been more useful if he had been there, of course, but we thought it might make a suitable practice piece. The meeting was very useful, with good information of how to plan his college stuff; and the tour of the very nice campus the information about the departments he was interested in was very useful. Certainly a very impressive place, even in the pouring rain. It was sufficiently terrible that we decided to take lunch in the student union. With some trepidation I will admit; until I realised that the food here was a food court, complete with the sushi above. Really. Sushi. I now am going to turn into one of those unpleasant old chaps who grumble about “In my day..” and yell at people to get off my lawn. Sushi. I had to eat spam croquettes.

We popped into the bookshop to pick up the obligatory souvenirs in the form of sweatshirts and teeshirts and decided to head back to the hotel, as the deluge had let up.

Unfortunately, the St. Charles streetcar thingy had a big hole in it where they were doing something constructive to the tracks, so we had to get on a shuttle bus to cover the gap. Confusing for me (why the heck would one do this in the middle of the summer) until I remembered that here, in New Orleans, this is the slow season. Conventions are not here, and people who live here try and get out of town. So if one is going to do a public works project this is the time of year to do it.

So we hopped on the shuttle bus, and when it was time to remount the streetcar captain excercise (to whom I am married) decided we should walk on from there. The streetcars on this line have no air conditioning, so it was not that much of a sacrifice, and she was probably correct about the effect of our food intake on our waistlines, and all our other bits for that matter.

My, but it was a warm walk though.

After some quiet hydration and recovery in the nice hotel A/C, it was time to dine. We were going to R’evolution, very close to the hotel, just off Bourbon street. The walk down was interesting too (we noticed an actual TV reporter, demonstrating to us that TV reporters clearly belong to a different species than we do), and that the crowds present on Bourbon Street disappear as soon as we turned off.

The restaurant had a different feel than the others; instead of a formal dining area, we were seated in a very nice room, with walls of copper implements and white tile with darker grout with a view into a prep kitchen. Very nice, but very different to what we had seen so far.

Once more, the food and service was marvelous. Rich though, and maybe could be best described as slightly less “haute cuisine” than the meals that preceded it. Equal in quality, though, just a difference in taste, or preference. Indeed the food was so good, and the drinks quite strong that the amble of a couple of blocks back to the hotel was quite dizzy and giggly.

A glimpse of celebrity

Monday dawned bright and early, as it will, and we reveled in the fact that we had no particular place to go,

Or I did at least. Having no particular place to go is not something the spousal unit is that comfortable with, so she decided to call the Tulane admissions office to see could she schedule a tour. The older child is going to college in a couple of years (I expect) so some practice at the process did seem to be in order, though we all expect the whole college tour thing is best done with the actual sprog in tow. We did hope to gain some insight into how things work and have a look around the campus, though.

In short order the nice folk there had made an appointment for us to meet someone the next day, and, as she was now content with the prospect of activities in her future, I could drag her off in the French Quarter in search of a better breakfast (not including damn biscuits, or grits, thank you very bloody much)

We found such at Cafe Beignet, where we successfully had coffee, breakfast and beignets, and the world looked much better (not that it was looking all that shabby to begin with. I mean we’re on vacation in New Orleans. If I complain too much I can hear my father’s voice muttering in my ear “what do you want, bloody jam on it?”).

Being half way there already we wandered onto the french market, to look at the nice touristy stuff and buy souvenirs. We managed to be disgracefully touristy quite well, thank you very much, and having successfully wasted the morning headed off to the lunch Karin had arranged the night before (remember what I said about her liking to have things to do? I was not kidding. A couple we spoke with in the restaurant the night before, and who we had rather alarmingly met again, by coincidence, this morning, had recommended Peche as a destination; we had no open slots for dinner, but we made a lunch reservation).

So we wandered up Magazine to Peche for lunch, which was not very far, but did offend my ocd spirit by having one of the letters missing from the sign on the building so the sign on the concrete read “Pech” while the wooden sign above read “Peche” (even I recognised I was being silly noticing this, but the whole thing does feature later, so bear with me).

In any case, we sat down, ordered a drink (illustrated above, a Bloody Mary which I photographed and sent to a friend claiming to be having healthy fruit drinks. She didn’t believe me) and ordered up some wonderful food, mostly in small dishes , for a very nice lunch.

Toward the end, I was discussing the signage defect outside with the waiter, and we decided to go and look, my powers of explanation clearly having failed in the face of hot walks and Bloody Marys. There was a crowd of people at the hostess desk; I excused myself and went around them vaguely noticing an odd look or two, and the fact that one or two people had hearing aids. We went outside, looked at the damage, and returning to the restaurant I offered to hold the door for the two gents standing outside, who politely declined, saying they were staying out there. They were rather large gents, even by my standards, and both had little earphones in too. I began to understand that there was something other than a bunch of people with early onset deafness going on; when I re-seated myself with my wife she informed me that Beyoncé, was there, along with Jay-z and some other folks, and their child. The large gents were, therefore, the bodyguards.

I looked up and around just in time to see them all trooping past the table, leaving. My immediate conclusion that my entry into, and sitting down in, the restaurant had lowered the coolness quotient so badly that they immediately had to leave; but I was not even that relevant, as apparently they merely went to the wrong place, meaning to go to Emeril Lagasse’s place around the corner. Oh well. They looked like nice people, but the dubious looks when I originally approached them completely obliviously were explained.

We staggered on back to the hotel for a quiet sit down in the cool before heading out again to a jazz club on Frenchmen Street called Snug Harbor. Had a decent meal, and a show that I honestly enjoyed more than I thought I was going to, so I can highly recommend it.

There was some sort of night market across the street from the restaurant, so we wandered about and picked up some photos from one of the stands there; I think this is the place, well worth a visit, some very nice things there.

Then a nice stroll back to the hotel through the quiet Monday night streets of the French Quarter completed the day very pleasantly.

Sunday Bells

On Sunday morning, the hotel room was suffused with the sound of bells. Here in New Orleans, somewhere close too us, is an actual chiming clock on a building which strikes the quarter hours, and the full hours too.

Honestly, it reminded me of the mantelpiece clock my parents got as a wedding gift which struck throughout my childhood, so I found it comfortable, and it did ensure that we staggered out of bed reasonably early. I was curious to see was this only a Sunday thing, but later exposure showed it happening on weekdays also.

Being up reasonably encouraged the spousal unit to pick a recommended restaurant for Sunday brunch, so we sallied forth into the French quarter once more.

Those of you who know me reasonably well will be aware of the fact that I am not terribly functional pre-coffee and some form of sustenance in the morning. Probably a half mile hike through the rapidly warming day is not recommended. It is really not recommended when one shows up at the place one is supposed to be eating at, and then is informed that the two things on the menu you would like are not being served that day. And the coffee is not that great either.

I like the American South, or at least the bits of it I have seen. The people are pleasant, the weather decent, and the food good. Except, I feel, the breakfast food; or at least it is not to my taste . You see, in the south breakfast seems to come with biscuits and grits. For me biscuits are arid, dried out, crumbly horrid things, rather like particle board which has degraded and has fallen to pieces, and then been shoved under a blowtorch with some form of binding agent, and the resultant malformed lump shoved onto your plate. Grits does a fair approximation of wallpaper paste with little lumps in it; and the more I have considered it, the more I have come to the conclusion that grits are a southerner’s version of kugel. To explain: my wife is jewish, I have been eating jewish ethnic food for years now, and mostly it is fine to excellent, as ethic food goes. There are a couple of outliers, I think; and kugel is one of them. Some time a long, long time ago, some jews were talking and decided to make this functionally inedible baked noodle dish, and pass it off as an ethnic delicacy to visiting non-believers, who of course, as guests, would eat it and make “yum yum” noises. It is, I believe, a complicated and conspiratorial jewish practical joke on the non-believers to make up for centuries of abuse and ill treatment. Well, I now believe that grits have the same function for the south; some form of complicated slow revenge for Benjamin Butler or Sherman’s march through Georgia or something.

As can be imagined, breakfast did not go terribly well, as every item on the menu now contained biscuits and grits.

Poor Karin now had to contend with me being ill fed and grumpy, something I would not wish on anyone, and decided to rectify it with a stroll around the far end of the French Quarter (alarmingly empty on a Sunday morning, with some actual inhabitants setting up chairs and tables on their balconies for an al fresco breakfast), added to a walk around Louis Armstrong park (where there are HUGE rose bushes, and very Sunday Morningy ducks, and a nice gentleman who came over to offer help to the poor lost tourists. We were not lost, just wandering fairly aimlessly, but we appreciated the thought anyway).

On the way back to the hotel we walked by a very crowded Oblate Church with lots of people in Sunday Morning clothes inside (right across from the hotel is a Jesuit church, I guess the Catholics are out in force down here) and right next door, on top of the car port of what presumably is the rectory or whatever was a sign that read “Thou Shalt Not Park” appropriately illuminated. I should really have taken a picture, but by the time I had thought of it we had passed on.

We got back to the hotel, rehydrated, and took a streetcar to the WWII museum, where you get the selfie above (I fear Karin has become very attached to the concept of the selfie. The woman is truly young at heart) for a nice walk around.

The WWII museum is extremely good, and well put together, even for a terrible pedant like me. There are wonderful oral history booths were you can press a button and get 2 minutes from someone on some topic scattered around the exhibits, and collections containing letters and flags and all sorts of other things. Good movie at the end also. I would certainly recommend it.

We streetcarred (fairly sure that is not a word) back to the hotel then relaxed until it was time to head off to dinner (as the museum tour had taken quite some time).

Dinner was August. Frightfully ritzy. All the food looks wonderful, and all seems to go through 56 stages of preparation, resulting in very complex flavours. This is great if one gets a winner (my duck was wonderful, Karin really enjoyed her dish also) but I can see where people would prefer something a little simpler, or indeed, where a dish could be ruined by the presence of one item one dislikes in an otherwise appetising combination (as a slightly finicky eater myself I feel this one particularly).

In any case it was a wonderful dinner, and afterward we popped into the bar for Gin Fizzes.

I’m just having bad luck with my fru fru drinks this week. I had not had a Gin Fizz before; I am sure this one was very well made and perfect in every way, ‘cept for I really didn’t like it. Something to go on my “best avoided” list, right there with Hurricanes (I really need to make that list, to avoid future issues).

Down south again

Having one’s children safely imprisoned ensconced in camp means that one can have a vacation. Oddly enough, this year we were terribly indecisive about where this event was to take place; eventually we just decided to return to New Orleans because we liked it so much last time, this time carefully discarding all thoughts of automobiles. All very well to have odd experiences once, but to try again smacks of thrill-seeking. Or being clinically insane.

In any case, we decided to fly, a decision aided by the spouse’s large amount of “points” gained, I am told, by shopping and traveling and so on and so forth. Apparently we had done sufficient shopping and traveling that a decent hotel could be included in the deal. While completely in favour of decent hotels, both in principle and in practice, I was a bit quizzical about the shopping and traveling end of the whole deal, because I had not seen that much of either. My gentle enquires were sternly rebuffed, and I went along without much complaint, ‘cos hey flights and hotel rooms.

A problem with flights purchased with these points things, is they tend to be at less than convenient times. This one was no different, as we were told we had to show up at O’Hare at 6 am on Saturday morning (I would define this as too bloody early for words). We contrived to stagger around the house at 4:30 am to get to the airport on time, packed and in relatively good order.

Everyone there seemed to be amazingly cheerful for the time of day, honestly; all very well for those of us headed on vacation, but the people who actually work there must have had a heaping helping of happy juice at some stage to engage with the general public so nicely. I’m barely civil to myself at that time of day.

The flight had the benefit of being reasonably brief, and us having the most legroom I have ever seen on an aeroplane. I could not reach the next seat ahead with my feet. My wife claimed full credit for this (some sort of ticketing voodoo, she said). I am afraid I only believe that American left a row of seats off the plane by accident.

We arrived in New Orleans safely, to find it rather damp, apparently it was rainy and expected to stay rainy, and, of course, one of the problems with getting such an early flight is the room was not ready. The nice people at the Roosevelt Hotel were good enough to take our luggage off our hands so we left to stagger around the french quarter. The photo above is a view of streetcars and palm trees that greeted us.

It was quite warm walking around, but still interesting to look at the people.

Looking at the people brought to our sleep deprived attention that, other than couples, groups wandering around the french quarter of New Orleans tended to be single sex – all women or all men. And, at this time on Saturday morning groups of women were prevalent. Where were their male belongings, one wondered? At home in Oklahoma? Still in bed after a Friday night on the tiles? I’m thinking the second was actually the case, because the density of groups of men rose as they day got later. Where were these chaps earlier? Still drinking coffee over their eggs?

After a nice omelet for lunch, we needed to return to the hotel to claim our room; they were nice enough to text Karin when it was ready. We wandered back to the hotel for a nice sit down in the cool, in a rather nice room.

Then, of course, as we were here for a week, Karin had to unpack.

Now, Karin packing has been a story in our relationship. For years I have only been allowed to bring things to her so that she can pack. I am not actually permitted to put anything in a bag, that would be wrong. The whole process amuses me a little, though I will be the first to admit she is much better at it than I am.

But now, I found I was not allowed to unpack either. she extracted everything from the bags, and safely put it in drawers, where we would doubtless forget some of it when we left. Mind you, living out of a bag for a week certainly lacked attraction also.

For dinner we chose a place we had visited previously, Lillette. It was as good as last time, well worthy of a re-visit.

Karin then expressed a need for a hurricane (the drinky one, not the weather condition). This involved a post prandial quest into the French Quarter to Pat O’Brien’s bar, where the thing was invented. The place has three bars, one outside, one inside and quiet, and one really really loud one inside.

Now, I have spent the best part of thirty years avoiding loud bars. This was challenging in Dublin, where I went to college, and in Chicago, with all the blues bars and so forth. But I have tried, mostly successfully. So of course, I ended up in the loud bar, with a fairly sozzled crowd, listening to some really loud piano players playing really loud pianos.

And, of course, I recalled after having been given my drink that hurricanes are very much cherry drinks, and I’m not very fond of cherries.

Oh well. It was still a good day.

Pubs and Tennis

At the end of every vacation I take, there appears to come a time when I am ready to go home. I have no idea why; it could be because I am tired of traveling around doing sightseeing; that the minor discomforts of not being “at home” reaches some sort of critical point, and I start to prefer the idea of being at home, to that of being on vacation; or that I start to miss the activities I cannot do on vacation. I really do not know, nor do I know if this affects everyone. This time, this vacation, I was very comfortable, and my home, in the absence of a kitchen, very much not.
All the same, by Sunday, I was done. I didn’t want to do anything any more, just wanted to head home. Despite all this, we had a wonderful, restful day. Our hosts produced a wonderful brunch of Florentine poached eggs; and I shall remember Simon’s stream of invective about organic spinach for some time and with great pleasure (he was the cook). Feeling the need to get out of our host’s hair and allow them a quiet Sunday in, we headed off to the local pub, having digested breakfast and pottered around for a bit. One pub being rejected on the grounds of being both too full, and too full of children (having abandoned ours, we certainly did not want to endure third party ones) we headed back to the one we had dined at earlier that week. There were pleasant tables inside, and as our meandering had lead it to be well past lunchtime, we ordered roasts (me pork, Karin chicken) and appropriate vegetables. We felt at least that we could take the table without guilt. We of course pulled out all sorts of digital devices as soon as we had ordered, absorbing ourselves in them, and not in each other and in people watching as one should in an English pub on Sunday afternoon. This probably says something meaningful about our mental ages and socialization but I am much too immature and antisocial to either figure it our or share it with you.
Lunch, when it came was very good. Simple food, cooked well. Each came with Yorkshire pudding

which did start a long conversation between us (“But what is it FOR?” asks Karin) roasted root vegetables, and our chosen protein. In completely adequate but reasonable portions, what is more. For something we had done just to hold a place to sit, it was a great meal.
Finished up, had another drink, chatted briefly with two nice chaps with a Staffordshire bull terrier who had taken the next table (she looked pleadingly at the remains of Karin’s lunch, but was very polite about it), and were finally driven back outside by the crowds arriving to watch the next Great British Hope play in the Wimbledon finals.
As we know, he lost. He did put up a creditable show, at least.
There have been Great British Hopes in Wimbledon for as long as I can remember, and despite appearances I am not old enough to remember the last time one won. Some were fairly decent, some much less so; This one seems to be much better than the standard, and I wish him luck. Don’t see him winning though…..
Fleeing the crowds and the roar of the TV we returned to our hosts, where we lazed around, did some packing, and read, and made plans for getting to the airport the next day.
These plans had been deeply impacted by London’s decaying infrastructure; most particularly the bit of the elevated M4 that had decided to delaminate or whatever it was. The road was closed for days and it meant getting to Heathrow from the east was going to be challenging. The minicab people, when contacted, gave the current version of a a teeth-sucking noise, a headshake, a sigh, and “I dunno guv”. They suggested starting an hour and 15 minutes before we needed to be there. This is a distance of a little over 10 miles.
We all decided that we would stay in that night, and that Rupert would cook. I think he volunteered, but we were all voting for him to do it anyway.
In response, he produced a wonderful Bolognese pasta dish, which I singularly failed to get the recipe for, which is a pain, because it was significantly better than my version. Another wasted opportunity.
Finished just in time to see the latest Wallander show with Kenneth Branagh. A good show, but one could hardly call it a bundle of laughs. Very grim and atmospheric. Worth seeing though, if it comes round near you.
All that done, full of idleness, good food, good companionship, and a dose of Scandinavian angst, we staggered off up to bed.

High tea and shopping bags

Sooner or later, there had to be shopping. Into each husbands’ life, shopping expeditions fall like gentle rain. Or like vicious winter blizzards, depending on the husband’s point of view.
I am more of the gentle rain school, though my stamina for wandering around shops has decreased as I age. My pleasure in people watching has increased, though so maybe it is a wash.
I had helped Karin plan this, putting forward Liberty’s and Fortnum and Mason as reasonable destinations. Harrod’s should feature also but it did seem rather far away from where we were, so I thought it might wait for another day. We had the whole afternoon tea experience booked at The Wolsley so hanging around Knightsbridge seemed a little out of the way.
In the interim, gleefully upsetting my carefully laid plans with the skill and pleasure of people who have known me for more than thirty years, my hosts had inserted John Lewis into the itinerary by pointing out the interesting home design and furnishings they carried. I can hear them laughing at my despairing expression yet. This is a family show, or I’d call ’em bastards. oops
In any case there was no escaping it, and there was was a John Lewis down on Oxford street, so it could be managed. Put Harrod’s further out of the equation though.
Fortified by Americano coffee (made from genuine ground up Americans) and breakfast from a coffee bar on Chiswick High street, seeming completely staffed and owned by French people, we hopped on the tube for the great adventure. Battling our way through crowds of people, none of whom apparently spoke as much English as me (not very much after twenty years in Chicago, I speak a sort of English/American pidgin now) I actually managed to get us to Oxford Circus and find Liberty without too much confusion.

I had forgotten quite how twee Liberty is. For those of you unfamiliar with the word a definition can be found here. Wooden stairs, galleries, arts and crafts clothing. Whole departments devoted to, as far as I could see, dreadful print fabric. More soap than I can recall having seen in one place at one time ever, all of it smelling of terribly obscure things. I was beset by the feeling of just being too big for the space, of having huge hands, and altogether too many knees and elbows.
Karin loved it.
After some physically small purchases, though with an astonishing ratio of price to volume, we wandered off to John Lewis.
John Lewis is an interesting department store; much more a standard one, but with a very strong interior design, decoration, and appliance presence. More time enjoyed there, mostly browsing, but with gifts for various people, and signs abusing my competence for display in the house being purchased. Which I think a little rough, given as I found her the bloody store, but such is my lot in life.
Decided to take an adventure to wander down to Fortnum and Mason and the Wolsley, (which resides in elegance beside the Ritz). If I remembered correctly this would go down Saville Row, which my wife the fashionista would enjoy, and then through the Burlington arcade, and then to Piccadilly.
And, good grief, I was right.
I did get turned around once or twice, and there wee a number of false starts, but it worked out. Amazing at the change in dress and accents halfway down Saville Row, from modern Oxford street t shirt and jeans, to splendidly tailored suits and cut glass accents. And then a twist back to normality as we approached the Royal Academy, students and tourists in their bedraggled clothes (rather like me at this point, I fear) taking over from the bespoke types.
I tried to convince Karin that Burlington Arcade was in fact full of video games, but I fear she was not having any. We did enjoy the security guards in top hats and gilt coats, though. Great shops in there too if one likes clothes and shoes.
Fortnum and Mason is distinctive. Great food court but also wonderful other things… Kitchen tools, leather goods, and linens. Hampers and headgear also. It is a distinctive store, and not just for the Tiffany blue boxes (though I daresay Fortnum’s was there first, and I am not sure the colour is entirely the same). I enjoy the space there. Too often in stores I feel crowded out by the merchandise, almost to the extent I am afraid to move. Lots of room in Fortnum’s, which I am sure is contraindicated by retailing specialists, but I still like it.
By the time we had made a few purchases there, we were hot and tired, and it was time for tea. The expression on the faces of the staff at the Wolsley was readable to me “Here” it said “was hot and tired American tourists, burdened with multicoloured shopping bags, staggering in our doors in search of sustenance, and we will be unable to help the poor dears, because we are full, and they have no reservation”. Expressions composed of sympathy and fear of future difficulty.
All resolved when Karin produced a reservation, and we were trundled off to a table in a grand room, where we feasted on tea, and wonderful sandwiches and cakes, and the best scones I have ever had. Not, I add in anti-American bigotry, those terrible triangular roofing shingles, composed of desiccated sawdust, and small coloured chips that are alleged to once have been fruit, that are gulled on the unfortunate American public by purveyors of sawmill waste; but real soft warm delightful round scones, with jam and cream on them and raisins in them. Soft, delicate and flavorful.
Go there, if you are in London; you will not be disappointed.
We returned briefly to Fortnum’s; I cannot remember what for, and then headed for the tube, with me festooned with multicoloured bags, performing the husband’s function on these expeditions (that of pack mule) staggering a little due to a surfeit of tea, and really sore feet. We made it home through the rush hour crowds eventually, probably leaving many cursing locals in our wake, but we were past caring.
Our hosts having an engagement, we grabbed sandwiches from a local Sainsburys and ate them for dinner gratefully. Our meals have been great over here, but we were crying out for something a little simpler, something that seems to happen often to me on vacation. The reflection of those days at home, maybe when you just want some cereal and milk, for ease of preparation and ease of digestion.