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Sailing on the Bay
Up until about 10 days before his birthday I had no idea what to get for Steve. It is so difficult to buy something for the guy who has everything. So I started thinking about what TO DO. Go carts entered my mind, which lead to a few other things, like sailing. So I sent an email to all his friends feeling out interest and got a ton. Settled, a sailing trip on the bay with his friends! I wanted him to be able to participate though, because when he was younger he used to sail with his family. I found just the right crew, Capt Kirk, who loves to involve his guests and explain how it all works.
I surprised Steve with the news on his actually birthday, a Thursday. I gave him a box at dinner that contained a captains hat. Two days later we were at the dock with his friends getting on the boat. I was pretty nervous because I get motion sickness (as do some other friends), but we all took medication (Bonine or Dramamine) and were all fine. I had a few moments of wooziness, but they dissipated quickly.
Shortly after leaving the dock we hit the wind and were moving at a 45 degree angle! I had to hold tight and brace my foot in order to prevent myself from falling to the other side of the boat. It was so exciting! Steve’s friend Tyler steered for a while – he had experience sailing, but not on a 50 foot boat! He ended up steering us into a wave that he could have avoided had he been able to see it. Most of the folks on the front and left side of the boat were drenched!
We turned back to go under the Bay bridge around Treasure Island, where the water was much calmer. I steered for a while and the crew brought out lunch. We ate on the calm waters and circled back to the docks. We could see the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, covered with fog. It and the city were so freakin’ beautiful! I couldn’t believe how quickly it all ended.
Later Steve told me that he wasn’t too excited about the trip until we were out there holding on for dear life at 45 degrees. You’ll notice in every single picture of him there’s a huge smile on his face. Everyone had a great time! I would definitely do it again, especially now that I know some Bonine fixes my motion sickness.
Santa Barbara
Following our return from London my friend Maritza and I drove down to Santa Barbara for a couple of days. She let me drive her car so that I could avoid motion sickness. She has a 2010 Mazda 3.5 hatchback and I have to say I was pretty happy with it. The steering handles well and it has some pick-up (once I adjust for the lag in hitting the gas). We tried to tour Hearst Castle on our way down, but it was booked so we decided to try again on our way home.
We arrived at our motel about 7 hours after leaving Walnut Creek. It was a super-cute boutique motel with fun things on the walls. The manager told us that we lucked out on our visit, the next day Santa Barabara would have a big parade for the Summer Solstice Festival. We wondered into town and had dinner and drinks. As we walked through town we discovered that people set out chairs, blankets, and barriers to mark their territory for the parade. It amazed us so much trust was given to all the residents of Santa Barbara. So we messed with a few chairs and switched them with others – that’ll show them!
Saturday was packed with all there is to do in Santa Barbara – which isn’t much. We started with the Old Mission Santa Barbara. While touring the grounds I heard a buzzing sound, a huge buzzing sound. I looked up and saw a gigantic swarm of bees hovering above the trees! I snapped a few pictures and we calmly moved away. Then we went back to see what happened to them. They were all settled and hovering together on a tree branch. I had heard about groups of bees moving and starting over when the colony got too big – I think that’s what this was. Hopefully they found a permanent home there, but who knows how the Mission keepers felt!
After that we wandered around the Festival. Ritz bought a cute veil thing and tried on some fairy wings. We saw cool floats and interesting people. Then we went into town and ate lunch outside. The whole town was abuzz with the festival – it was cool to see the community that way. We ended up getting mani pedi’s at the mall downtown. I was pretty unhappy with mine – the woman wasn’t even paying attention as she scuffed my feet – it did not feel good. The experience made Ritz pretty sleepy so we went back to the motel for a rest before dinner. That night we ate at Opal – really good food!
The next day we headed out early for Hearst Castle (about 2.5 hours away). We made in time for a tour and chose the garden tour. The visitor center is about a 5-10 minute bus ride to the castle itself, which sits high on a hill in the background. We made our way up and met our tour guide – who ended up being the most boring, least informative guide either of us had ever had. He really sucked. And the grounds weren’t that impressive. I expected a lavish garden full of beautiful flowers and statues. But we just walked along pathways that happened to have flowers planted here and there. The guest house was interesting, full of extremely old and expensive things. The decor was so gaudy though – overly elaborate – not at all my style. One thing we did find out from our guide is that the estate belongs to California now, not the Hearsts. They donated it some time ago. A pretty fascinating story if you have the time and interest.
London, Day 8
I wanted to get breakfast one last time and our host said York & Albany, a Gordan Ramsay restaurant was good for it. So we walked over there and I ordered a traditional breakfast again (consists of one fried egg, one piece of bacon, one piece of sausage, a fried tomato, some mushrooms, beans and toast – crazy!).
The place was empty except for us and another couple. A few more people walked in later, I paid no attention. While we were eating Steve said, “hey, do you recognize that voice?” and tilted his head to the left, where the voice was coming from. I looked over and my face immediately went flush – on the couch with a blond woman was Ewan McGreger! I turned back to Steve and said, “holy shit!!!!” I wanted to look over again and again so badly, but I didn’t want to be rude. I kept my composure, we both did, and we continued to eat and marvel at the fact that he was 20 feet away. I’m a huge fan, I think he’s a great actor with huge versatility (singing, blockbuster-ing, independent-ing and let’s not forget where it started). Steve is also a fan because of Ewan’s motorcycle enthusiasm – often narrating motorcycle documentaries and taking a motorcycle trip around the world with his best friend. We concluded that the woman was interviewing him. When we left I tried to make eye contact, but he was deep in conversation answering a question and didn’t glance over at us. Oh well, it was all cool enough as is!
Then we went home.
London, Day 7
Can you believe it, we had another late start! We wanted to get some good fish n chips again (chippys), but it was late in the afternoon and most places were closed until dinner time. We did find one place near Camden Lock, Lockside Lounge. They weren’t nearly as good as Blackfriar’s, but they did the trick. We ended up walking around Camden Market, which was even fuller then when we saw it earlier in the week – due to it being a Sunday. I shopped around a bit and bought myself two dresses and Steve two cool t-shirts.
That night we took our hosts and their children to dinner, a cute little Chinese restaurant across the street. The restaurant was a boat on the canal, and the food was OK. Eating with kids was interesting though. They have so much energy, they never stop going! After we dropped off the kids and went to a pub for some ale then headed in for the night.
London, Day 6
Yet another rainy day. We had another late start, so we had a lot of trouble find a place to eat lunch at 3pm. We attempted to do more walking tours and headed out for the Wander in Westminster tour. The first thing we saw on the tour was London Eye and then Big Ben. Big Ben was indeed very big, much wider than either of us expected. As we walked around the British Parliament building and over to Westminster Abby it started raining pretty hard. We wussed out and headed back to the house.
We hung out there and relaxed then went to see X-Men later that evening. I was mostly happy with the movie, but there were (as always) some really ridiculous things that annoyed me. That evening we had drinks at the bar with our hosts and their college friends. I believe that was another night where we ended up going to bed around 4am, thanks to our hostess. Obviously we have a really good time chatting with her until all hours of the night!
London, Day 5
This was a pretty rainy day so we decided to do some indoor site seeing. We went to the Tate Modern and I was surprised to find no admission fee. I haven’t been to a free art museum since the Cleveland Museum of Art! Apparently all the art museums in London are free. I liked about half of the art I saw. I don’t always understand abstract art and I find it rare that it actually speaks to me. There were a few pieces that really moved me, one of those being Lost Mine by Peter Lanyon.
We were pretty tired after spending a few hours walking around the museum (that’s always so tiring!) so we headed back. That night we met Shana’s soon-to-be mother-in-law, Karen and her husband Paul. We had a delightful dinner with them at Kettner’s and learned a lot about what they do and how British aristocracy works – an idea very foreign to us Americans, as we really have nothing to compare it to. My dish, Coq au vin, was delicious, but I don’t think Steve was impressed with his. When we arrived the place was packed and when we left it was empty, the time simply flew by as we got acquainted. I’m really looking forward to seeing them again at the wedding in Cancun.
London, Day 4
We woke up at a slightly more decent time on this day – 11:30am. Ate breakfast and headed out for the Tate Modern and Tower of London. Steve discovered online that the last tour for the Tower is at 3:30, so we went there first (we ended up at the Tate another day).
Our tour guide was funny and full of character – a Yeoman Warder. We learned a lot of neat things from him about the Tower, which is actually several towers and buildings on the inside. We saw the Crown Jewels and they were not as spectacular as I expected. The large jewels looked fake, probably because the cut was so simple. We also saw some torture devices, but the area was really small. Something they aren’t very proud of? And we walked through the armory. It took a long time to get through it all and was quite tiring.
Outside near the Tower is Tower Bridge, which a lot of people mistake for London Bridge. It’s a gorgeous, fancy blue thing crossing the Thames. We walked over it and found a neat place to eat off the beaten path, Dean Swift. As we ordered some dinner the place started to fill up with office workers stopping off for a happy hour drink and chat.
We were so tired (and getting cold) after that so we just headed home.
Pictures from the Tower of London
London, Day 3
Wow, we managed to sleep for 13 hours – from 12a to 1p! When we finally got ready for the day we just walked over to Camden and ate lunch a cute little Italian restaurant. On the wall above us was a cute picture of an old couple. I asked the waiter to take our photo with them in the background, but it didn’t turn out too well.
After lunch we walked around Camden and saw the cool market area and store fronts with cool 3d signs above them. It all reminded us of the Haight (which also reminds us of Coventry back home).
Later that night we attended a charity ball with our hosts – World for Libya. We had a lot of fun watching our table mates bid on things. There weren’t a ton of things to bid on – about 11 items – and our table won three of them! One of the items was a ring filled with white and black diamonds. When the ring was passed around our table I was surprised at how heavy it was.
The ball was topped off with a comedian, Maz Jobrani, who was really funny. That may be the first time I’ve ever seen a comedian live. He made fun of all types of people and when he asked how many Jews were in the room, Steve was the only one who raised a hand. So he ended up making fun of Steve directly with a joke or two. It was good stuff, and if my memory were better I would relate it to you.
London, Day 2
(This ended up being pretty much our only nice, non-rainy day.) I didn’t want to sleep the day away, so we got up around 10:30am. We ate some breakfast at the house and set off for Central London to do some walking tours. My aunt Karen gave us a book, 24 Great Walks in London, that guide you through some interesting, off-the-beaten-path areas. The house was about a 10 minute walk from the Tube – I was shocked at how small it was, with its low ceiling and extremely warm atmosphere.
We did our first walking tour and saw some neat stuff – the Monks, Murder and Masons tour. We saw some neat old buildings and a lot of graves! It appears that London is full of dead people. A lot of the parks have been built up on top of old graves and the tombstones were then moved to the park edges.
Before starting on our second tour we decided to eat at the Blackfriar Pub. The place was awesome – the deeper you went into the pub the darker and more cave-like it got. The windows were stained glass with monk images and the upper walls lined with dark, mosaic images of monks doing their monk things. The bartender had a ton of personality as well, flipping the glass before filling it with ale. I ended up ordering fish n chips – THE best I’ve ever had. Normally I can’t make it all the way through the fish because its too boring, but this I couldn’t stop eating!
We started on tour two, The Splendor of St Paul’s. Unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to take any pictures inside of St Paul’s and there was a service going on anyway. Very beautiful though. The building in the image is Christchurch Greyfriars, which still has many bombed-out fragments.
Towards the end of the day we talked about how London didn’t really feel foreign. But why? Are we too immersed in the culture? I think part of the reason it felt familiar is because we speak the language, watch British television and movies and the terrain reminded us of home (Ohio – Steve’s allergies came back almost instantly.)
We took a nap before dinner and just walked over to Primrose Hill and had some OK food.
Here are the pictures I took on the two walking tours.
London, Day 1
We arrived in London extremely jet lagged around 1pm. We hired a car to drive us to our hosts house which is nestled between Camden Town and Primrose Hill. Our host (friend) gave us a tour of his beautiful house and suggested we take a 2-3 hour nap which would refresh us enough to go out for the evening and still fall asleep later that night.
The nap helped a lot. We woke up and had a drink with our hosts in our their bar (along with this guy) then went to some nearby pubs in Primrose Hill. We ended up having Indian food for dinner. Then we headed back and our hostess kept us up until 4am. Needless to say that did not help with our jet lag!
