Jazz Clubs in Europe

I usually write about music on my other blog but I thought it would be good to comment briefly on last night's visit to the 606 club, a cool jazz club we visited in Chelsea last night.

I have to say I don't think I have ever been to a jazz club really until recently. AM and I saw a pretty neat big band at a bar in Cardiff, and during my most recent trip to Paris we went to the Caveau de la Huchette, a great little underground club in the Latin Quarter which has evidently been there for 60 years. I guess for some reason I always thought Jazz clubs were for old people. So, either they are, and I am getting old, or I was silly and have been missing out on some cool music all these years. I prefer to think the latter.

The 606 is a great little place in Chelsea, very close to the fancy Chelsea Harbor Club, but with a very laid back vibe, not at all like I would have expected when we were walking around Sloane Square earlier that evening. Last night we saw Pat Crumly, an amazing saxophone and flute player, with his small band that included drums, piano and stand up base. We had a great seat right in the front row - I was so close to the drummer I thought he might sweat on me - and all the musicians were really talented. The food and wine were pretty good too.

So I guess now I can say that I actually like Jazz. Or Jazz clubs at least. I am looking forward to visiting more of them.

A Trip to Northwest England

Since I have been in London I have been meaning to get up to Northwest England, well, Manchester and Liverpool anyway. Ironically it wasn't until I saw an advert in the movie theatre promoting 'Northwest England' that I realised they were so close together. So I schemed with AM to do a weekend trip and cover both places.

We took a very early morning train up to Liverpool from London, which took around 3 and a half hours and put us in Liverpool in time for lunch. Liverpool has plans to be the European Capital of Culture next year, whatever that means, and obviously they are working on it. There was construction everywhere. We headed straight for Albert Dock, which has both the Tate Modern and the Beatles Story museums for a quick taste of Liverpool old and new.

At the Tate, we saw this years nominees for the Turner Prize, which were displayed in Liverpool for the first time. We actually just saw a retrospective of all the Turner Prize winners a couple of weeks earlier in London, so it was great to see this year's finalists in person before the winner, Mark Wallinger, was named. The Tate Liverpool has great little collection, very compact and accessible compared to its older brothers in London.

After the Tate we went over to the Beatles Story, which had a queue even in the rainy October Saturday. It looked pretty cheesy from the outside but it was pretty good actually. There was a lot of commentary from some of their families and rooms devoted to Paul and John's solo careers. The recreation of the bar where they played a lot of their local gigs was pretty neat too. And as a bonus one of the guys working there looked and sounded just like John Lennon. I don't think that was intentional - I heard quite a few guys with John Lennon's accent walking around town.

I never put this together until we visited, but Liverpool is a very important spot for the history of music. In World War II it was a big port for allied soldiers, so the US soldiers brought across their music and brought home the Mersey Beat records. You could argue that all this cross-pollination in the 40s and 50s led to the stardom of Elvis and later the Beatles.

After visiting the history of music in the 50s, 60s and 70s, we moved on to Manchester, which fathered many bands in the 80s and 90s. Manchester has always been a mythical place to me since I became a hard core New Order fan in high school. I was fascinated by their history, having formed after Ian Curtis hung himself and Joy Division ceased to exist. At one point I owned practically every disc ever created by the band and its various offshoots, Revenge, Electronic, the Other Two, etc and I read all kinds of books including Deborah Curtis' autobiograpy and I have seen 24 Hour Party People and Control. When I was appreciating all things New Order in the late 80s and 90s there was no Internet, so the only way I could appreciate the Madchester culture was by buying import Factory CDs and magazines at the Beat or Tower Records in Sacramento.

Just this August Tony Wilson, who started Factory Records and the Hacienda in Manchester, passed away from cancer, and here in London it made the BBC news. So it is fitting we got to see a great history of what he created at Urbis, a really cool arts complex in downtown Manchester. Urbis was created in the new Millenium Quarter after an IRA bomb destroyed a big chunk of Manchester. Ian Simpson won the right to design an amazing glass structure that is now a very unique cultural centre, with different rotating exhibit spaces, a restaurant and its own television studio. Right now they have a huge exhibit about the Hacienda and the impact it made on Manchester culture. It was great for me to see the whole history unfold and to check out all I missed as a teenager in Nevada. It's funny to read about it and see the pictures and imagine how we were going to lame Carson City and Reno nightclubs for most of the time the Hacienda was around. The music there was of course better but I suspect the crowds were much of the same.

I really liked Manchester itself. It has a nice feel to it - a bit of older architecture mixed in with the modern, a manageable sized downtown area and a lot of artists and musicians living there. It is about half a million people or so and reminded me a lot of the Pacific Northwest. I think I am too old for the nightlife now - the clubbing anyway, but I think it is a place I could probably live in for a bit, a bit more manageable than London.

The pictures from both cities are posted here.

I finally gave in to Facebook

All summer people have been talking to me about facebook and I have been avoiding it. I finally signed in thanks to Mary. You know, it is pretty neat. I can see why people get hooked on it - there are lots of compelling little add-ons. I spent way too much time adding places to my map. Who knew that someone would be interested in the fact I have been to Mesquite, Nevada? Much better than friendster.

I was expecting that tons of my friends would already be on facebook, as they were on linkedin. No such luck. Maybe I am a bit too old for it?

The only problem is that I fully intended to update my blog tonight, and well, this is all I can manage. I did post three new photosets on flickr though.

Estonian Weekend

Thanks to lastminute.com, AM and I spent this last weekend in Tallinn, Estonia, which is across the bay from Finland and Sweden and just next to Russia.

I have always been drawn to Central/Eastern Europe and the former Soviet block. I am not sure why. Perhaps it is because I am at least half Polish, maybe because Hungary was the first country I ever visited in Europe and really enjoyed it. Mainly though because I think these places didn't exist as independent countries and/or were largely inaccessible when I was growing up. I remember looking at maps as a child and just seeing a giant red blotch that was USSR (or CCCP) and thinking it was cold and scary there. It is just amazing to me that now not only are these countries independent and open for business, many are even part of the EU and NATO.

Michael Palin has just started doing a travel series on the BBC about the 'new Europe' - which is exactly a tour I would like to do someday. I wish he had invited me along.

Anyway, I had been talking about seeing Tallinn for a while. It has a reputation for its beautiful old town and its active nightlife (translation - cheap beer for stag nights). We also found really lovely cafes and cheap spa treatments.

We left Gatwick on Friday for the three hour trip to Tallinn, on Estonian air. I didn't realise how far it was, both in distance and time zone - they are two hours ahead of GMT. We arrived late on Friday but still managed to check out Hell Hunt, the oldest pub in Estonia. We snagged a great table for people-watching and I sampled some of the local beer. When we left at 2 a.m. there was still much more night left for most of the folks there.

Saturday, after dragging ourselves out of the hotel after 11, we wandered around the old town checking out the various sites. Tallinn has a compact, beautiful old town with lots of colorful buildings and churches. We wandered around, climbed up St Olaf's tower for a rainy view, walked to the other side and saw the view from there as well and took plenty of photos. Later in the evening we settled into a lovely little wine bar and did a full tasting, and I mean full, before having a nice Italian meal.

We also found the DM Baar - a bar dedicated to Depeche Mode and evidently affiliated with the Estonian Depeche Mode fan club. It was covered in DM paraphernalia including pictures of the band when they have visited in person. They really need to change their carpet though, it was really disgusting. We took a bunch of photos during the day when it was empty and then had to go back at night to see what kind of clientèle frequent the place. It was a bit surreal to say the least.

Sunday we relaxed and had very reasonable spa treatments before having an Estonian lunch and heading back to London. There are an abundance of spas in Tallinn and the treatments are much, much cheaper than London, though evidently much more expensive than the rest of Estonia. My only problem is that my pedicurist took a little chunk out of my heel, and it still hurts. I think she was still hung over from Friday :)

Photos are posted here. I would highly recommend Estonia for a couple of day trip if you are ever up that way.

Musical Journey - my other blog

I haven't blogged here for a few weeks, but I have been trying to work on my other blog. If you haven't seen it, it is a chronicle of all the concerts I have ever seen, starting with the Thompson Twins in 1984.

I have been plugging away at that blog since 2004 and I am just barely halfway through the list of shows, so I figured I ought to step it up a bit or I have no chance of ever getting them all posted. Or by the time I do blogs will no longer be cool.

UK Sell Outs

I guess things happen in threes. Or at least I need three examples before I am driven to blog.

Is it just London or are all of a sudden musicians selling out like crazy? The other night I was shocked to hear Stephin Merritt's voice and trademark ukulele music hawking a new Volvo station wagon. Then tonight I saw a Mars bar commercial with New Order's Blue Monday in the background.

But the absolute worst I thought was the new Birds Eye commercial with Suggs from Madness. Not so much because they are using Our House, which is one of the most commericalized songs on earth - but because he is actually in the commercial.

I guess I am in marketing so I shouldn't bitch. Am I a snob or should I expect my music heroes to remain untainted?

Spanish Art History Lesson

I spent this weekend in Madrid. I had wanted to go to see the Prado for years, especially after going to Spain last year and not seeing a single Goya or Velazquez painting. Both painters are supposed to be masters but even with all the museums I frequent I had never seen one live.

Since I was going for a singular purpose, I stayed right in the heart of the golden triangle, almost right across the street from the Prado. I was happy to find out that all three of the major museums, the Prado, the Thyssen, and the Reina Sofia all stayed open reasonably late so I took my time visiting all three.

I probably spent the longest time at the Prado, I am not sure exactly but I think I was in there for at least three hours. I got the audio guide and spent a lot of time going through the different works, which span three solid floors (plus some stuff in the basement that I didn't get too) and it was quite an education in Spanish art, from El Greco to Velazquez, from Goya to Dali and Picasso. Now I get why these guys were so respected. Velazquez had amazing talent for capturing the essence of the people in his religious and historical paintings as well as his portraits. Even though I thought I hadn't seen any before a lot of them look familiar, which I suppose makes sense since a lot of other artists paid tribute to him.

Last summer when we traveled in Spain I spent a good chunk of time reading Hemmingway's Death in the Afternoon, a bit of ordered rambling on bullfighting and other things. I remember reading him going on about Goya, luckily for the web I found the passage I remembered: '[Goya believed] in what he had seen, felt, touched, handled, smelled, enjoyed, drunk, mounted, suffered, spewed-up, lain-with, suspected, observed, hated, lusted, feared, detested, admired, loathed and destroyed. Naturally, no painter has been able to paint all that but he tried.' After reading that I was dying to see a Goya painting, but could find none in Bilbao. I think it must be because they are all in the Prado, well a lot anyway. And yes, they are brilliant. And more, they are so different. Regular royal portraits, royal portraits with a backstory, a famous nude, some really grim black paintings when he was exiled, I could go on and on but I think you just have to see them. I think I would like to read a book about him now so I can get the full picture.

I guess Madrid has always been a seat of kingdoms and those royals collected a lot of art, not just Spanish but plenty of Dutch and Italian stuff too. I don't think I have ever seen this many Titian paintings and I was also surprised to see Hieronoymus Bosch there as well. The Garden of Earthly Delights is in the Prado, and I have to say it is one of the strangest paintings I have ever seen. I can't believe it was painted in 1504.

After the Prado I went over to the Thyssen, a very nice museum with a collection of a very rich family. It had a lot of really nice works, sort of a nice complement to the Prado, but it was a bit more accessible, i.e. I didn't spend three hours there. It had some great early Dali paintings. He started out so normal.

After two museums and almost five solid hours viewing art I had to take a break, so I got on one of those open air bus tours and saw the rest of madrid from the top. It looks like a very beautiful city. I was impressed with the architecture, especially the restored art deco buildings on the Gran Via and how green everything was. Unfortunately I just kind of whizzed past it all, there are a lot of places I would have liked to check out in more detail. But I still had another museum left to see, so I got off the bus and walked quickly to the Reina Sofia museum.

Lucky for me (and for the locals) the museum doesn't charge after 2:30 p.m. on Saturdays. I got there around 7:45, just an hour and 15 minutes before closing time, so I sort of breezed through it. I probably missed a lot, there are some really interesting sculptures and a couple of special exhibits I skipped. But I did get to see Guernica, which made the entire trip worth it. It is housed in its own special room there on a very large white wall and I think probably 90 percent of the visitors in the museum at that point were in the room. I have owned a small print of it for years and it is hard to believe it is from the same piece. I guess it hasn't even been in Spain that long, it was held in the MOMA in New York for years so I was lucky to get to see it where Picasso wanted it.

Anyway, it was a great weekend and I learned a lot about Spanish art. All the photos, mostly from my bus tour, are posted here.

Eyam, Chatsworth and the Cotswolds

I have recently done a couple of day trips to a few nice places in the English countryside. Yesterday I visited Eyam and Chatsworth in Derbyshire, and a couple of weeks ago I did a whirlwind bus tour through the Cotswolds.

I'll start with the most recent (and freshest in my memory) day out. Yesterday was a bank holiday in the UK so I decided to do a London Walks trip to Derbyshire. I really had no idea what I was getting into, just that I needed to go to St Pancras train station for 8 a.m.

Just going to St Pancras was neat in itself. The station is in the process of being restored and remodeled to become the new home of Eurostar in November this year. I always change trains on the underground here (I think of it as St Pancreas) but I have never actually been to the station and it is quite beautiful already. It will be amazing when it is finished and I will be about 20 minutes closer to Paris.

Luckily I turned up a bit early, some prospective walkers got turned away because so many people joined the tour. We followed our guide(s) Hilary and her husband David onto our train for a two hour journey to Chesterfield, which is in the heart of Derbyshire, north of London. Once we got there we boarded a coach which took us to our first stop, the town of Eyam.

Eyam has the unfortunate moniker of 'the plague village.' It is quite an amazing story actually. During the plagues in the 17th century a merchant accidentally brought the plague up to Eyam and infected the residents. Once the town realized what was going on they took very brave steps to contain it within their town, by doing things like burying people in their own gardens, moving church services to an open field and quarantining themselves from the other villagers. Almost the whole town died, according to wikipedia only 83 survived out 350. We walked around the town and saw the church, the plague cottages (marked with the number of dead family members) and some of us walked up to see one of the boundary stones that marked the edge of the town.

The only bad part about Eyam is that since they were having a festival, the Tea Room was overwhelmed and did not serve us our lunch. We were pretty hungry so we were pretty disappointed when we had to leave early to catch our bus. I guess I didn't really need that Steak pie after all.

Next we moved on to Chatsworth, a huge estate and home to the 12th Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. I am not sure why they are called Devonshire when the home is in Derbyshire, but who knows. I guess the Cavendish family owns land all over, including London and Ireland, so it probably doesn't really much matter.

The estate is unbelievably beautiful, not so much for the house but because of the amazing gardens and land surrounding the house. Two head gardeners were pretty much responsible for it all, one guy called Capability Brown in the 17th century, who sculpted amazing landscapes with rolling grass and trees, and another called Joseph Paxton in the 19th century, who took over at the age of 23 and created amazing fountains, conservatories and a wonderful rock garden. While the house was impressive, to be honest it didn't look much different from the different royal palaces I have seen before, even though this one didn't really house kings and queens.

I guess for a time the estate was used as a girls school during world war II and in the middle of our tour we actually ran into a couple of sisters who lived there during the war and had come back for a visit. That was really neat, especially since we found them near a painting of that time.

Like most London walks, Hilary and her guide did an amazing job organising it, entertaining us during the walk and looking after us in general, even running up and down the train carriages to make sure we were all okay. It was a great day out.

The trip to the Cotswolds was equally as fun but a totally different experience. AM found a tour that took us out on a coach and was only 12 pounds...such an amazing deal. This tour was pretty basic, we met near Victoria station, boarded a bit an older bus, and shuttled back and forth between three Cotswold villages. Our guide did read us a bit of background on each place, but basically our main goal was to get as much sightseeing and shopping in as possible at all three spots.

We saw three villages - Burford, Bourton-on-the-Water and Stow-on-the-Wold. We spent the most time in Bourton-on-the-Water, which bills itself as the Venice of England. I haven't been to Venice myself, but I think this is a bit of a stretch. We had a lovely English lunch of fish pie and some very nice wine, which made the last bit of the trip a bit of a blur for me. But I did enjoy the trip and was glad I finally got to see the Cotswolds after a couple years of being here.

Both sets of photos are up on the flickr page - Chatsworth/Eyam and Cotswolds.

The Grand Depart

This year the Tour de France started in London. I have to admit I don't much follow the tour or cycling in general, but it was neat to get to see the racers up close, both parading in and competing in the prologue.

I had no idea this year's tour would turn out to be so controversial. I watched a bit of it in Italy after I sprained my ankle and a few days later the guy who won that stage got kicked off the tour, with several others to follow.

M got to show off his iphone for the friday opening ceremonies - all the photos of riders walking in and riding away from trafalgar square are from the phone. They turned out pretty good and it looks like he even managed to get a picture of the winner.

The photos of the first two days in London, along with some other random photos from that weekend, are posted here.

More about me

I love these cheesy 'get to know you' emails. Thanks to my friend Shirley for forwarding this one.

Four Things you may not know about me....but probably do now:

Four places I have worked:
1. Winchell's Donuts, Carson City, NV
2. Women's International Bowling Congress Tournament, Reno, NV
3. Gold Hill Hotel, Gold Hill Nevada
4. Western Union, Reno NV

Four places I have lived:
1. Cambridge, MA
2. London, UK
3. East Lansing, MI
4. Portland, OR

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. Frasier
2. Will and Grace
3. Saturday Kitchen (BBC)
4. Countryfile (BBC)

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Lake Louise, Canada
2. Cancun, Mexico
3. Crete, Greece
4. Salerno, Italy

Four of my favorite foods:
1. sushi
2. ethiopian
3. a really nice cheeseburger
4. caprese salad

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Italy
2. Portland, OR
3. Thailand
4. Fenway Park

Amalfi Coast Holiday

M and I just spent two lovely weeks on the Amalfi Coast in Italy. It was an amazing place with plenty to see and do, and more importantly for two workaholics, a great place to relax. There is so much to take in and it is a trip I would recommend to just about anyone, although perhaps not in the hottest part of the summer.

I have to admit at first I was a bit intimidated by the whole trip. M had suggested it after seeing a show on the Naples underground on the history channel. I love Italy so it is never hard to convince me to go there. However my only experience in Naples was as a stop on my first train trip through Europe, where we took a couchette car (6 beds in one car) with an Italian lady we affectionately called Madonna who kept getting up to smoke. I remember pulling in late/early on the trip and seeing Naples from the train and thinking, yuck, what a dump. But after talking to some friends and reading about the Amalfi coast I thought it sounded like a brilliant trip. I was really geeked to see Pompeii and the multitude of other archeological sites and the food in the area is billed as the best in Italy, if not the world.

At the recommendation of a very nice Italian woman from a store where I shop in London, we started our trip in Salerno. It was billed as pretty reasonable with very good transport links to the major attractions and my friend even recommended a hotel that was down the street from her aunt.

We flew into Naples late in the evening and took a train from Naples to Salerno. Naples was as I remembered and the whole train station experience was a bit stressful. But eventually we got on the train, which incidentally was the same type of sleeper train I had passed through Naples in before.
We shared a compartment with a guy who turned out to be going to Salerno too. He didn't speak much English but we communicated fairly well with a few struggled words and he let us know when to get off the train, and also let us know that our Hotel K was not pronounced 'K' but kappa. We would have felt like idiots asking the cab driver to take us there...but, as it happens, when we came out of the train station in salerno dazed well after midnight he flagged us over to his 'machine' and gave us a ride to our hotel. It was a very nice start to the trip.

Our first day in Salerno we took the ferry to Amalfi and explored for the day, then took a bus back to the city. The bus ride was an experience in itself, so many windy turns on the mountain road with the bus honking everytime it went around a corner. Many times rows of cars had to stop and/or back up to let us go by. It was treacherous to say the least, but fun to watch from our vantage point.

The next day I was all fired up to go to Pompeii and we got up a bit early to make our way down to the bus. M had bought the tickets and when the bus showed up, he rushed across the street and we both hopped on. But I didn't really hop properly I guess, because I stepped on a sewer grate, and very painfully turned on my ankle, spraining it instantly. I was howling on the bus and we immediately got off. Needless to say, this moment sort of changed the entire tone of our trip.

M helped me hobble back to the Hotel K and propped me up with ice while he went out to the Farmacia to see what was what. He came back with some steriod gel and the recommendation that we go to the hospital. By this time my ankle was huge and already bruising and looked pretty gross. It was really hard to tell if I had broken it because any type of movement was so painful. So we took a taxi to the hospital so I could make sure it wasn't broken.

The hospital was an experience in itself. Hardly anyone spoke English, which is to be expected, but by pointing and handing them my European Insurance Card (thank god I got one of those!), they put me in a wheelchair and checked me in. We spent probably three or so hours there, and had a great time watching the people and the other dramas going on around us. There was a grandmother in a wheelchair moaning and getting catered to by her entire family, a few teenagers who must have been in some kind of car/scooter accident with the boy strapped down to a board and in a neck brace, and a woman screeching and crying at the carabineri, who pulled up with their sirens and tall black boots. There was one nurse/orderly who spoke English so he took me to the X-Ray and told me what was going on...I have to admit when he left at the end of his shift I thought I was screwed. But I finally made it into see the doctor and though he couldn't speak much english, we figured out that my ankle was not broken and that we needed to get me an air cast. To amuse myself while I was there, I started counting t-shirts with English slogans on them. I got up to around 18. I find it interesting that people will wear shirts with something in a language they cannot speak.

So the next several days for us were pretty low key. It really hurt to walk so about all I would do was hobble a few blocks to eat. Luckily there was a great little restaurant on the corner by our hotel and we got to know them a bit, so by the end, they made meatballs especially for us. Ordering was an adventure though. The first day we were there M ordered a pepperoni pizza with artichokes - and got a pizza with pepperoccini and anchovies. It was good though. Pepperoni is definitely an American pizza topping...

Salerno itself was a nice little town, not touristy at all. It has some spectacular ocean views, though the beaches we saw were pretty scraggly. It would have been great for doing more sightseeing - the ferries and buses were amazingly cheap, especially compared to the rest of the area. It was very relaxing to be there without any crowds.

After Salerno we moved on to Sorrento, which was very much the opposite. Sorrento was brimming over with tourists, from when we arrived on the ferry we could tell we were in a different world. Luckily we stayed at a nice place, Mami Camillia's, a cooking school in Sant d'Agnello, a little town up on the hills looking over Sorrento proper. We stayed in a little bungalow and though we didn't learn to cook anything, in the evening we dined family style with all the other guests, eating whatever they had made that day. We had some really nice dishes and it was great because it was stuff I would never have ordered in a restaurant. One night we even had 'burgers and fries' - an amazing beef patty with rosemary potatoes - as our main course. Plus we met a lot of interesting people traveling through. Definitely a fun place to stay.

From Sorrento we finally did get to Pompeii. I sucked it up and dealt with the pain for the day. Though I have to say the pain of my ankle was nothing compared to the heat. I think it was almost 40 degrees centigrade that day and the sun was merciless. There was not much shade and since we got there around 11 am, we were there at the hottest part of the day. We sort of went from shady spot to shady spot and tried to follow what we were seeing with this cheapie guidebook - I should have known better than to buy it from one of the hawkers on the way in. After Pompeii we went into Naples to see the one thing M really wanted to see, the underground.

This was the only time we really spent in Naples and as I expected, it was not really nice. There were piles of trash everywhere and people selling random junk out on the street. We got very detailed phone directions to make it to the underground, which was probably about a 20 minute walk, which seemed like torture in the stifling heat with a sprained ankle. I have to think that under the filth there is probably a very interesting historic city, but i am not sure I have the patience to find out. The underground tour was great though - miles and miles of tunnels that had been used as greek and roman acqueducts, a theatre, trash pits, then finally as bomb shelters in WWII.

From Sorrento we moved on to Ischia for the last few days of our trip, where we stayed at a beautiful five star spa hotel, the Terme Manzi. Ischia was a great little island, big enough to take an hour to get around, but with lovely little pedestrian streets and beautiful harbor views all over. We spent a lot of time lounging at our hotel, where I think we had some of the best service ever. Everyone was so nice and friendly and constantly looking out for you - at breakfast they carried your buffet plates back to your table and whenever you finished something it disappeared before you even noticed. I would highly recommend it. The last night we were there we went to the festival of St. Anna, where basically the entire island turned out to watch a competition for the best 'float' - floating displays with music and skits about the island's history.

As I said earlier, people in the area consider Neapolitan style cooking to be the best in Italy, if not the world, and I have to agree. This is the land of my personal favorite salad, the Caprese, and I had at least a dozen during my time there. The ingredients were so amazingly fresh and I do not think I had a bad meal the entire time. The house wines (in Sorrento homemade wine) was better than most wine I drink in London. The best part was after two weeks of chowing down on pizza and pasta I don't think I gained any weight, in fact it seems like I lost some, which is pretty amazing.

Anyway, it was a fabulous trip and I can't wait to go back. It was absolutely stunning, and there are many more places to see which would be much more accessible with a healthy ankle! All the pictures are posted here.

June travels

I had a busy month of June, with trips to Stockholm, Paris (with a visit to Monet's gardens in Giverny) and Baden, Switzerland, a surprisingly cute spa town just twenty minutes from Zurich.

Stockholm was incredibly beautiful and I could have spent much more time there, especially since summer was just beginning. I can imagine no one in Stockholm must stay inside for the entire summer.

Now that I have uploaded my photos I am stunned how beautiful Monet's gardens look. While it was a fun and memorable trip out there, I remember thinking that his paintings were a lot nicer than reality, but maybe I was just jaded by our crazy French driver.

Baden was a very nice surprise considering I was primarily there for work. It was a very quiet spa town with fabulous food and even its own casino. I would love to go there again sometime soon.

All the pictures are up on the flickr site. If the trips weren't so old, I would write more but for now I am just happy to link to the photos.

Digital Madness at the Pet Shop Boys

I usually leave concert reviews for my other blog but at the rate I am going I won't get to this one for a while. This is not really a review anyway but a moan of sorts.

So yesterday a friend and I saw the Pet Shop Boys at the Hammersmith Apollo. The show itself was great - Neil Tennant sang just like he does on the discs, the light show was simple and elegant but not too obnoxious, the dancers a bit corny but talented, and the music infinitely danceable as always.

Unfortunately where we were there was not much dancing going on at all. Primarily because almost everyone around us were trying to capture the show on their digital cameras and mobile phones.

At the risk of sounding like an old fart, when I was younger we had to smuggle in our regular film cameras, try to force our way to the front and then snap a few photos when we thought we might not get noticed by security. Trying to get away with the camera was a bit like the drinking, something that we were not supposed to do but it was cool to see if we could do it anyway. But none of us were obnoxious (or stupid) enough to risk taking more than a few choice shots and for the most part we spent our time at the concerts listening, watching and dancing, which is what you are supposed to do.

Last night these people had their cameras up for perhaps half or more of the time during the show. Which is annoying on so many levels. I am short to begin with, so it is hard enough to see over tall people standing in front of me. But at times I was actually getting a better view of Neil Tennant from the cameras. Also, these people are standing there the entire time with their arms up in the air holding the cameras and so in a close crowd, their pits were almost directly in my face. And when you are trying to dance in close quarters like that, it is more fun when everyone is doing it, because you then have room to move around. I kept bumping into the woman's arm behind me because she was holding her camera almost directly over my head. I have to admit that a couple of times I intentionally waved my hand in front of her camera to block her shot. I could not resist.

I imagine today these people are posting their pictures and/or digital videos all over the web, so perhaps PSB don't really mind because they get a lot of publicity that way. I can't imagine that any are really all that great though and the friends who didn't go to the concert probably are not going to want to look at these fuzzy, far away images of the band on stage.

I think that bands should go back to banning cameras (and now phones) so that we can all have a good time, and keep the images in our heads as memories, where they belong.

One of the New Seven Wonders

We recently went for a week's holiday in Cancun, Mexico. Cancun is not the first place I would have chosen to go, especially from London, but I was pleasantly surprised. The hotel was very nice, the service superb and we had some really good meals as well.

We spent most of our days lounging on the beach, but we did get a couple of adventures in, one in particular to Chichen Itza, famous Mayan ruins a bit more than two hours' bus journey from Cancun. A lot of people I know have made the trip out there and it was highly recommended so we found ourselves a tour and signed up, even though we had to leave our hotel at 7:30 a.m.

The place is quite a surprise as I imagine it must have been when it was originally discovered. It is in the middle of nowhere in a tropical, humid forest and I guess at first the big pyramid was completely covered in vegetation. Our guide has been doing these tours for 35 years and it was impossible not to be as captivated as he was about the whole place. After seeing famous ruins in Greece and Italy it was also pretty neat to see a very active archelogical community around the place. It sounds like they are studying it and making new discoveries all the time, and tour guides like ours need to do 100 hours of coursework a year to keep their guide certification and to keep up with all the latest theories.

One thing that was like Greece and Rome (and perhaps more obnoxious) was the amount of junk for sale at Chichen Itza. People are lined up along the entrance so you have to walk a gauntlet of people trying to sell you t-shirts, fake mayan gods, embrodiered hankerchiefs, etc. A few even follow you on your tour but our guide warned us right away not to encourage them or we would be hounded for the entire time.

We couldn't climb the big pyramid for some reason, evidently it will open again in July after the Seven Wonders competition is over. That was fine with me since it was unbelievably hot and muggy and we were lucky to be there on an overcast day.

On the way back we stopped at a cenote or sinkhole, which was a cool cavern underground where you could take a dip in very pure water that flows eventually from the ocean. We didn't go in but were glad for the respite from the heat. A couple of days later we got to swim in another one anyway. I guess there are thousands all over the area.

After visiting Chichen Itza I would like to learn more about Mayan culture and history - seems a shame I spent so much of my life so close to it but never really learned anything about it.

You can vote for Chichen Itza and other of the 'new seven wonders' at this website. Not sure what the point is, but they will announce the winners in on the 7th of July in Lisbon. I was happy to have visited 7 of the 21 finalists - and interestingly enough, two in the last month.

Pictures are posted here.

Istanbul was Constantinople...

Now it's Istanbul not Constantinople...you must know the words.

And I do as well. And I had the words running through my head for almost two weeks after my weekend break to Istanbul. But it was definitely all worth it. This was one of the most interesting places I have visited in quite a while.

I was lucky to join AM and her friend for a bank holiday weekend in Istanbul. C had just spent two weeks in Turkey on an intrepid tour so by the time we got to Istanbul late Friday night, she was already an expert on the city (well, from our perspective anyway) and knew how to navigate the public transportation and the old town of Sultanamet.

We flew from Heathrow on was for me a surprisingly long flight. Of course if I had bothered to find Turkey on the map I might not have been so surprised. Three hours and two time zones later we landed at the Istanbul airport past 11 pm, with our hotel-hired driver waiting for us.

Traveling is all about changing your assumptions and my first assumption shattered was that Turkey was a poor country. Istanbul is quite cosmpolitan and its airport is not really any different from other European airports. My other assumption proved correct though was that the people were very friendly. When we arrived at our hotel the staff welcomed us warmly and when we asked if there was somewhere we could have a drink, they said most things were closed but they were happy to serve us, which they did until nearly one in the morning. I always remember my father telling me that Istanbul was by far his favorite place from all his travels, because the locals were so nice. He told me that he was forever being invited into people's kitchens and served tea and even though they could speak very little english, he had a great time visiting with the people he met there.

The next morning we started our day with breakfast at the rooftop terrace of our hotel, with an amazing view of the entire city - agia sophia and the blue mosque on one side and the bosphorous and the modern city on the other. After our meal AM and I ventured out to visit the Hagia Sophia, an amazing site that started as a Catholic church during Constantine's rule, was converted to a mosque by the Ottoman empire, then most recently has been turned into a museum. The Ottomans had painted over most of the original mosaics inside the dome when it was converted and they have been trying to restore them recently, so some look pretty good and others are still mostly rubbed off. What I thought was unique about the mosaics is that the Holy Roman emperor at the time had himself put in the mosaics, once with his queen. Seems pretty presumptous that he could be pictured hanging out with Jesus, like they lived in the same time. But I guess when you are the emperor you can do whatever you want. The dome and the colors inside were unbelievable and we spent a while getting close up to many of the different patterns and colors.

After the Hagia Sophia we went across the street into the cistern, that was the original water source for the ancient city. It was dark, cavernous and filled with water - a pretty neat place. I wish my photos came out a little nicer. Everyone goes to visit the medusa heads, which are upside down pillars with medusas on the bottom. One is turned on its side and no one really understand why they are there.

Next we went back to the hotel to pick up C and then hit the Blue Mosque. The Blue Mosque looks kind of like the Hagia Sophia but instead of a museum it is an actual working mosque. We could hear the call to prayer from the blue mosque (and probably other mosques near us, there were dozens) five times a day. But unlike the little mosques this one is a big tourist attraction and thousands of visitors go in every day. It was the first (and only) Mosque I have ever visited and it was quite an interesting experience. First we had to go around to the visitors side and queue up with the other tourists. There was a door in the middle where all the muslims could go in for prayers. We had to remove our shoes and cover our heads (though not all the tourists did). Once we got inside the first thing I noticed was the distinct odor of stinky feet. All those bare feet on the carpets take their toll. But the decor inside outweighs the smell - absolutely beautiful detailed ceilings in vibrant blues and reds. We stayed for a while and spied on a tour, watching the men praying towards the front of the mosque, towards Mecca. The women were relegated to the back on not so comfortable looking stone benches, without much view of the ceilings.

Later that afternoon we took the ferry over to the Asian side of Istanbul (Istanbul is in both Asia and Europe) and met one of our co-workers who lives and works in Istanbul. He took us on a great tour of this side of the city, which is the more residential area. First we went to the major shopping street, where I was shocked (and a bit dismayed) to find it was just like any other big city shopping street, with gap, body shop, zara and at least 8 starbucks we counted. It actually reminded me most of NW 23rd in Portland. But it was fun to wander around the western and Turkish shops and see who was out on a Saturday afternoon. The starbucks were packed too, with everyone sitting outside and enjoying their lattes and frappuccinos. Afterwards we went to an amazing restaurant right on the waterfront and had an amazing meal, complete with two very nice bottles of turkish wine. Afterwards we went to probably the nicest coffee house I have ever visited, a gloria jean's that had taken over an old turkish mansion, while our friend watched the football match in the bar. Turns out it was a deciding game between the two Istanbul teams and the entire area was watching it. When the local team, Fenerbahce, won, the whole area went bonkers, honking horns, signing, shouting, etc. It was infectious and a great atmosphere. On the way home we saw the police lined up at the other stadium, there were something like 4,500 police for 3000 away supporters. I guess Turkish sports fans have quite a reputation.

The next day we took a boat cruise on the Bosphorous, the strait that divides Europe from Asia and connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara. We saw beautiful views of the old homes, the different sides of the city, and a bunch of 'summer' embassies of various countries. We spent a couple hours in a small village at the end of the tour where we had another amazing seafood meal then headed back into town. The ferry itself was not really a tourist boat but a regular transport ferry, and people got off and on at different destinations.

After our ride we went over to Taxim Square, which is the heart of modern istanbul (and turkey for that matter) and another area full of shopping and coffee shops. After seeing so many different coffee shops, chains and non-chains, it began to occur to us that in a country that is 99% Muslim, maybe coffee shops are more appealing than bars. They were certainly all full of people. We got to Taxim via the Funicular (the third oldest underground railway) and the streetcar, which dropped us off at the square. There has been a great deal of political unrest in Turkey lately, due to the tension from the very secular government and miltary and recent elections and this square is the center of it. Kemal Ataturk, considered the father of modern Turkey, changed Turkey to secular state, banning headscarves from government areas, encouraging everyone to wear western clothing and in general trying to modernize the country. Just a few days before we visited about a million Turks demonstrated against the election of a Muslim president and you could still feel the tension in the square - with snipers on the walls surrounding it. For a while we just sat enjoying coffee and watching the different kinds of locals walk by - from young girls in jeans and t-shirts and boys with what seemed to be the standard Turkish cut (kind of a standing faux-hawk with sideburns) to young girls and women in various grades of muslim dress, wearing brightly patterned scarves or plain ones, sometimes with regular clothes, sometimes with full-length light coats, rarely actually with full on burkas. I think I see more burkas in London actually.

Finally, on Monday, we rose early to get a chance to shop in the Grand Bazaar. My plane left early so I had limited time to shop, probably a good thing, but I did manage to get a very nice orange leather bag and of course some Turkish delight to take home. The Bazaar itself is a huge mall-like maze of shops - selling mostly rugs, pottery and leather goods. The charming merchants are always flirting with you to try to get you in and once you are in they are dying to sit you down, serve you tea and sell you more than what you bargained for. I think you could probably easily spend an entire day there and not see half of the place.

All in all it was a great trip and I would love to go back someday and seem more of Turkey, especially the mountains and the coastline. Photos from the trip are posted here.

Monaco is nicer than Nice

I had to go to Nice for a conference last week, so M and I decided to take advantage and spend the previous weekend in town and check it out.

I had never been to the South of France and I was pretty excited about it. I was imagining crystal clear turquoise water, spotless white beaches, beautiful homes with beautiful people to match. Well, with Nice, it wasn't quite what I expected.

I should be fair. The water is definitely gorgeous as fitting the Cote d'Azur. When you fly into the airport it looks just stunning. But once you get to the airport and out to the town it goes downhill pretty fast. The city reminds me a lot of the older parts of San Diego, with a lot of run down oceanfront hotels and condos that were perhaps once brightly pastel. Now most of it just looks tired. The convention centre and the area around it where we were staying was a bit sketchy, not too different than my own little neighborhood of holloway road with kebab shops, little markets and tacky bars. The convention center itself was probably built in the 70s and looks like it attracts some pretty upmarket events (Tissue World had just left town) and the beachfront, made up of stones, had a large encampment of homeless folks there.

The worst part of Nice is the dog culture. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against dogs, in fact, I like most of them. However, there is a limit. And in Nice there is no limit to the little doggie reminders left for you on the sidewalk. By Tuesday it was starting to become like a game to avoid ruining your shoes. Then, like a miracle, Tuesday night the streets were cleaned. I guess the promotion should be 'poop-free Wednesdays.' Ironically a few restaurants were closed Wednesday night. Dogs were everywhere, inside without leashes. Once morning I ate breakfast with a dog on the bench with me at the restaurant. I thought the lady next to me was sniveling and whining - I was a bit relieved that it was her dog instead.

Several good things about Nice - the ice cream was really good with a lot of unusual flavors. Bubble gum was a big hit with my friends though I didn't try it myself. The old town is beautiful and bustling at night. The food in general was quite good - we had a few really nice meals and no real bad ones. The people were also very friendly and forgiving of my awful attempts at French.

We took a 15-minute train ride up to Monaco on Sunday and Monaco was pretty much all I expected Nice to be. The town is spotless and reeks of money everywhere. Lucky for my credit card all of the stores were closed. Pretty much everything was closed except for the casino, the hotels and the palace.

The city is pretty small really, but built up onto a big rock. To make it easier to get around the city has installed a huge network of tunnels and public elevators to get up and down the different streets. They came in pretty handy, especially on the return back. We walked around the town all day but it took us about 15 minutes to get back to the train station from the palace, which looked like a really long walk on the map.

We had to go to the casino of course. Well, not really, but the coffee shop there was open and we were starving. I found it quite ironic that I went all the way to Monaco to eat in a casino coffee shop. It was nicer than the Carson Nugget though, and definitely more expensive. We didn't go into the casino itself because they charged a 10 euro entry fee, and I just couldn't see paying that to see people gambling. We did go over to the little free casino area and play a bit of video poker, just to say we had. They had all the same machines as Nevada (made by IGT even) and they were all in English. The gardens around the casino were not bad, but in general Vegas blows Monte Carlo away - but they cannot duplicate the ocean view.

In a way it was nice we picked a Sunday to go. It was so quiet and pleasant to walk around. We saw virtually no residents, not sure where they go on Sundays but all the homes and apartments seemed to be pretty empty. I guess it is early season and all, but felt kind of odd. The Palace and the gardens were beautiful and fairly busy, though it was hard to tell if the Royals were home or not.

Pictures from both places are posted here, including a few really memorable signs.

St Patrick's Day in York

Last weekend my friend AM had to go up to Harrogate for a conference, so we made the most of it and spent the weekend in York. It was a bit ironic to spend St Patrick's day in the quintessential English town, but we managed.

York is a small little town in the north of England, about two hours train ride from London and a big tourist destination for folks all over the UK. It was a great little town to visit - so small it was impossible to get lost but with lots of great sights to see in a couple of days.

After we arrived at the station, we found our little B&B hotel and braved the cold for a guided walk around Roman York. Turns out York was one of the main areas settled by the Romans and ruled by them for several hundred years. The wall surrounding the city was started by the Romans then built up over the centuries - most of what you can see and walk on now is medieval, but you can still see lots of Roman remnants around the town. Pretty amazing to me that we can still see construction from the year 100. As part of the tour we walked on a good portion of the wall, seeing into people's backyards as well as a nice view over the rooftops of the city.

We were quite cold after our walk so we of course needed to warm up with some Guinness. We found a great little pub, the Punch Bowl, and settled in there for a few hours and many pints of Guinness. Their St Paddy's day promotion was a free hat with four pints purchased. It was easy to get one hat, but if we wanted to walk out of there drinking four pints each was a bit tough. Luckily some nice local guys gave us their extra tickets and we scored two hats, as well as some other Guinness souvenirs.

After several hours at the Punch Bowl we got the bright idea that we should go to a real Irish pub and went to O'Neills, where we queued up for a nasty, smoke-filled, sticky floor experience. At one point we were pegged in by a filthy ashtray on one side and a couple in need of a room on the other. So we decided to forget it and went back to the punch bowl for the rest of the night.

York is evidently full of ghosts and I thought we were visited by one at the pub. After all, it was 400 years old. However, I think I just drank too much beer and was tricked by my pub-mate!

The next day we had a lovely breakfast and saw more York sites. Unfortunately I talked AM into going to Jorvik, the Viking site in town. The woman working at the hotel tried to politely dissuade us, but I thought it sounded pretty neat. Avoid it at all costs - unless you are dying to see a Viking latrine in action! Easily one of the tackiest tourist attractions I have ever visited. I guess people queue up for hours in the summertime. I feel sorry for them.

After Jorvik we got literally blown into the York Minster. I didn't realise this before, but evidently a Minster is the seat of the church in the diocese. It is also a cathedral. Not all cathedrals are minsters and not all minsters are cathedrals, but this one is both. In terms of a tourist experience, I think this is one of the best churches I have visited so far in Europe. You pay one fee to see the inside of the church, climb up the tower and go to the crypt below. The tower was quite a haul up, but the views were well worth it. The church itself is beautiful, sparkling clean and with nice stained glass all around. And the crypt comes with an audio tour that was very well done. I learned a lot about the history of the minster and more about York.

After the Minster, we finished up our time in York with a traditional tea at Little Betty's (big Betty's is in the town centre and always has a long queue). Scones, tea and yummy lunch.

Photos from the weekend (including several with hats on!) are posted here.

A Visit to Flanders

The first week of March I had some good friends in town and we all took a weekend trip to Bruges, Belgium, in what was once Flanders.

We took the Eurostar in on a Friday evening which was a bit of an adventure in itself. We upgraded to 'Leisure Select' which meant we got fed a pretty nice meal and were kept in wine, water and coffee for the short trip to Brussels. This was the first time I have gone beyond the regular coach class on the Eurostar and I would highly recommend it, especially if the ticket difference is only 10 pounds like it was for us.

I had heard before that Bruges was a nice place but I really didn't know that much about it. Turns out that Bruges was originally part of Flanders (as was Amsterdam and most of the Netherlands) and most people there speak Flemish. Silly me, I thought most people in Belgium spoke French. When I heard people speaking Flemish, I was really confused - I thought, well that is not German, it is definitely not French, what is that??? I guess it is quite close to Dutch. I found myself getting confused as to whether or not to say Merci or Danke but the Flemish is close enough, Dank U, so not sure if they could tell anyway, since I am a dumb english speaking american.

The first confusion with the different language though came when we were looking for the train from Brussels onwards to Bruges. JIm was asking for Bruges, but the lady in the station was saying Brugge (sounds like bru-ga). We were talking about the same place, but were saying it in three different languages. Luckily we found our train and onwards to Bruges without a problem.

Once we made it to Bruges, we stayed in a very charming B&B that Cathe had found on the web right near the town centre. After a snack (including a lovely Belgian beer) we settled in for the night.

The next morning we awoke to what we thought was a very miserable storm coming in - the wind and rain sounded so horrible I think we all thought we were going to stay in all day. Luckily it didn't rain much on us on Saturday, though I have to say it was definitely colder than I expected. We made the most of it though, we saw some great art including some Flemish primitives, explored a lot of of the city's major sights on foot or during a bus tour, and of course, sampled from many of the 47 chocolate shops in the area. Sunday Cathe and I also got the opportunity to endulge in Moules and Frites - Belgian Frites of course, not French.

While we were there, there were crews filming a new movie, In Bruges, due out in 2008 and starring Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes. Unfortunately we did not see them wandering around, but we did see a lot of cameras and the Christmas decorations that were up as part of the setting.

To say that Bruges is charming is quite the understatement - it is a gorgeous city surrounded by canals - a very clean, smaller version of Amsterdam. I would definitely recommend it for a weekend. Photos are posted here.

Passport woes

I must rant today about renewing my passport while living overseas.

One of the real hassles now is that I not only have to worry about a passport, I have to worry about the associated work permit inside. I had wanted to renew my passport over the holidays, but my employer would not authorise the expense to renew the passport itself, and without the immigration attorney's support, I did not feel comfortable doing it myself in the US for fear that I might not be able to get back into the country.

So the day I came back to the UK, I sent my passport in to be renewed, in the hope I could get both it and my work permit transferred before having to leave for the US tomorrow.

Well, no such luck. I am flying out tomorrow to california, and I just received my passport today, at 4:35 p.m. The whole process is really irritating. You cannot go to the embassy itself to renew your passport. You can go there to get an emergency passport if you make an appointment, but otherwise you have to send your documents via mail or special courier service. After you have sent in your application, you can no longer apply for an emergency passport. The passport office itself is only open until 12:30 p.m. every day and if you try to call, they put you on perpetual hold til the phone finally disconnects you. The messenger service is equally un-user friendly - when you dial they give you three options - if you want to schedule a pickup, if you missed a delivery, and number 3, which gives you a recording and disconnects you. I did have better luck communicating with the embassy via email, though I have to say they were nonchalant about the whole thing.

The most irritating part was the fact I sent in the wrong size photos. Silly me, I just assumed that all passports are the same size so I never worried about measuring the actual dimensions. But no, I got a letter back that my photos were the wrong size and I had to rush down to get new pictures taken and send them special delivery back to the embassy. My cheeks are rosy in the photo from moving so quickly that day. The frustrating bit is that my head is actually the same size, it was just the physical dimensions of the photos were different - they were not 2 inches by 2 inches. Considering they scan them in to the computer now anyway, this seems ridiculous.

I guess I can't complain too much - a friend of mine had to renew his passport over the holidays in Greece and wound up picking it up on the way to the airport, 40 minutes before his flight. At least I got mine within 12 hours of departure.

Photos from Fall 2006

I realize I traveled quite a bit in the last few months of the year. Between October and December I went to Munich (and Regensburg, a nearby medieval town), Paris, Milan, Siena, Rome and Austria for various work and fun trips, including my first skiing experience in Europe. Too bad there was not more snow! I posted my random pictures from the trips here - not many of Paris since I was not feeling well and have been there plenty of times in the past.

Racism Row on Celebrity Big Brother

All I have heard about on the news this week is the ongoing saga about Celebrity Big Brother. On the BBC radio in the morning, on the television news, on every tabloid headline. Until this week, I didn't know a thing about the show itself other than it is yet another boring reality thing.

I guess the gist of what is going on is that Jade Goody, one of the people on the show who's claim to fame is being on the regular Big Brother, supposedly made some racist comments to Shetty, a Bollywood super star who is also on the show. The local broadcasting authority has had a record number of complaints, Gordon Brown has had to deal with it during his visit to India this week, and in the meantime, the ratings for the show have skyrocketed - making people speculate that it is just a big publicity grab.

Whatever is really behind it or whether it is racism or not, it got brought a bit closer to home for me when a random guy got in my face about it when I was waiting to use the ATM the other day. He stopped on the street, mumbled something incoherent at me, then told me that in reality, Indians are the superior race.

I'm not sure what bothered me more - that he thought I was racist or that he thought I watched Celebrity Big Brother.

More tube antics

It has been quite a while since I posted, so I figured it was time for a new look. Blogger has completed its first big upgrade since the Google acquisition, so I decided to take advantage.

Also, I think i must have rested my arm enough so that I feel better now typing for fun. Back in October I thought I had seriously injured myself due to too much technology in my life, most specifically, typing on one of those tiny keyboards on my PDA. After switching to mousing on the left, changing my workout, three weeks of holiday, and probably most importantly - cutting way back on the use of my iPaq, I am ready again to face the world with new blogs.

Disappointingly, this post is going to be very similar to my last. Yesterday while riding the tube I watched a young girl making her eyelashes beautiful. She went through the entire process - first she curled her lashes with one of those torturous looking metal devices, not just once, but several times, holding it for 20 or 30 seconds at a time. Then she applied mascara very carefully to her lashes, darkening each one until they were all uniformly colored. Then she cleaned up any leftovers that got around her eye. The whole process took about three tube stops.

The funny bit is that then she got up and left the tube and because she had only finished one eye, she looked like Malcolm McDowell from Clockwork Orange. It seems silly to me to go through all that effort only to look freakier than when you started.

One can only hope she did the other eye on the next leg of her journey - without dislodging her eye with that curling contraption when the tube made a sudden lurch.