Yes, i've got a bad cold and whilst id like a bit of sympathy I wasn't expecting sackcloth robes and a bell so i can roam the corridors on my way to accounts, moaning 'Unclean!'.
Oh well, in other news its been quite quiet. The end of the badminton season means i get my friday nights back (woot!) but i am to be the treasurer next year (un-woot).
How about go on a brewery and tasting tour of one of your favourite ales? Which is precisely what I had to do.
Sam Adams is basically responsible for the re-birth of small american craft brewing . If you can find a bottle of their Boston Lager (Available in TGI Fridays in the UK) I solidly recommend giving it a go. They started in 1985 from an old brewing recipe in the owners attic from his great great granddaddy that was forced out of business during Prohibition.
Since then they've put the art back into Artisan brewing concentrating on good quality beers not mass produced ones.
I sound like the tour guide right?
Anyways the set up we visited was their orginal headquarters and testing plant which was great to see the tour guide knew her beers as well and it seemed like a very cosy family type set up.
After trying the ales the hair of the dog was making me yo-yo between feeling 'Top Dog' and 'Dogs Breakfast'.
We headed to Harvard to see the area which was student-y (Surprisingly!) and walked the streets for a bit in the lovely sunshine before I came home for a much needed nap.
Then we went out in the evening back to Pizza Uno which was again a very pleasant dining experience. We went through the mall for books for the trip home and I found that Chris Claremont who wrote most of my favourite comics books when I was growing up is coming here for a signing at 6PM when I shall be leaving on a jet plane. Darn it.
To cheer myself up I got ice cream at ben and Jerrys before coming back to hotel to pack.
I don't do wacky.
I don't enjoy Zany.
I did very much enjoy our tourguides commentary as he was very knowledgable very funny and fully in possesion of those most important qualities Irony and Sarcasm.
Can we just get one thing clear right now? The Americans I have met this trip are just as capable of being knowingly funny (irony/sarcasm/metaphor) as people are in the UK. Some people don't get it, but thats a universal trait that will happen from Bangalore to Boston.
I say this as well because we have had excellent fun/chats with many people over here and this perception of the Americans as people who don't 'get' humour is an offensive racial slur.
Anyways after the duck tour we got chatting to 'The great Garibaldi' who, offstage was a very relaxed funny insteresting guy. He recommended a pub called the 'Pour House' (Okay not everything in america is funny) for dinner.
We headed up the prudential tower which has a view over all the boston. The views were stunning, the audio commentary less so.
From there we grabbed some lunch at Pizza Regina (Aparantly a landmark pizza joint, The chicken pesto pizza was rather good) and went to a fire station which was selling t-shirts for good causes. By now the sun was strong and we headed for some shade in the indoor market and after that it was time for Pint number one.
Another faux Orish bar called the purple shamrock had excellent ales but with Garibaldis suggestion in mind we headed back to the Pour house and had an excellent meal and many many beers for not a lot of money at all!
After that we came back to the rattlesnake bar where our waiter from the other night (The one I mentioned s have a good throughour knowledge of ales) was having car trouble and was waiting for a lift. I bought himn a consolation pint, and one for myself of course....
And then the evening gets a touch blurry. I don't remeber the photo being taken but that is Nick behind me. I do remeber getting lost after leaving the bar which is funny because the bar is less than 100m from the front door of the hotel and then I know I woke up, fully clothed with a git of a hangover. Which will become funny when you find out what we had panned for our final day in Boston.
Anyway we wandered around, mainly to keep warm, and met Steve and Kara following the freedom trail which is a walk around some of bostons historic areas including Paul Reveres house, Benjamin Franklins tomb the site of the boston masacre and tea party etc etc.
We got rather cold again so we headed back to the hotel for a warm up and said goodbye to steve and kara.
We met up and headed down to a fake irish bar with an authentic irish barman.
These pubs really are the same the world over. They call themselves 'O'Mallys' or some rot like that and then staff themselves with as many 'Orish' ex-pats as possible, perhaps forgetting that they were the first people to leave the Auld country!
Its like when Liverpool Airport renamed itself John Lennon Airport after the first Beatle to get the hell out of Liverpool!
Anyways we stayed there for a decent meal and some more excellent beer. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the Americans are saving all the good beer for themselves!
Andy, loves good quality lager. Give him a kronenburg or equivalent and hes happy (But never stella. NEVER Stella, he may ask for it, but don't give it to him.)
But overhere he's trying the IPAs and the Samuel Adams specials and hes loving them because they are hand crafted proper beer/lagers none of this mass produced chemical crap.
Yummy.
Anyways after a few beers and being reminded of the championship we gave away to the Irish this year(Shouldn't have worn my Wales shirt to an irish pub.) IT was time for bed.
Anyways not much to report on the journey just a lot of water bad drivers in other vehicles and a bit of a scramble to get the car back in time. Returned it to the car hire company with 5 mins to spare....Phew!
We caught the T train (underground) to the hotel which it turns out is far too posh for the likes of us. Apparantly the president stays here when he's in Boston. Yep, we feel like the beverly hillbillies right now. I'm going to start whittling and ems going start brewing up a batch of moonshine!
After we settled in we headed out to a pub called the rattlesnake bar where a guy called Nick (Who I will mention again!) who knew his beers recommended some excellent ales for us all to try. We moved onto the uno cafe grill where some excellent little burgers were had along with some newcastle brown ale on draft. yummy. A quick stop for a highland park 18 yr old (Me) and a Laproigh 10 (her) in the Whiskey bar, and then home for sweet sweet sleep.
I Say 'ferry', I mean 'speedboat with a passenger deck'! This thing could shift and was the most maneorvurable thing I'd ever seen on water. It was a great wake up call first thing and I'd recommend it to anyone!
From there Em and I headed up to the very tip of the Island to the Medeavil collection of the Metropolitan musuem of art. Its a purpose built monastic building which holds some incredible pieces, Em absaloutly loved it.
We met up with the guys backdown town for lunch which was deeply dissapointing as I'd fancied a TGI Fridays which took more than an hour to serve us. I say more than an hour because we walked out after 60 mins of no-food. Well, all I can say is that if they keep going like that then no-one will eat there. It took Wendys less than a minute to give me a delicious burger at about a quarter of the cost.
Anyway, then we headed to the museum of sex which was actually really interesting but obivously I can't go into details here. It wasn't about erotica though it had a much more scholarly feel but still very tongue in cheek.
Anyways with a big drive to boston tomorrow we decided to call it a day and just nipped over to the mall for some food and an early night.
I left manhatten with this thought, eeryone in New York is a tourist, the only thing that differs is the length of our stay.
We walked further into brooklyn and very gradually, street by street it seemed to change from rich to poor Until we were right in the middle of what looked like a very deprived neighbourhood.
It felt rather intimidating, I mean no-one started anything or gave us any hassle but it was a bit odd to be on crowded streets and clearly be the only tourists there. Probably wasn't a sensib;le thing to do but prospect park made it more than worth it. It was the orginal design for Central park and gave/gives residents of the city a green lung. Its beatufully designed.
From there we took the subway all the way down to Coney Island which was dreadful. Like Rhyl but with the misery ramped all the way up to 11. Tacky shops crowded broken broadwalks facing a freezing atlantic ocean. Not my favourite place.
After that I really needed a beer so we headed back to brooklyn heights and took shelter in a lovely pub which had 12 different types of proper beer (Non of this bud/miller/coors chemical garbage). We stayed there quite happy until the sun went down and we walked back across the brooklyn bridge at night and took some stunning photos! One of my favourite things we've done here.
After that it was time for some well earned sleep.
Breakfast at the hotel was good (and free!double plus good!) then we walked out onto the jersey shore to see the manhatten skyline from the east side. It was breathtaking.
With the storm could heading in (and snow!) we headed for the subway and got to greenwich village via Christopher street and took a wander around the washington park (closed for repairs) had a decent lunch at a irish/mexican joint which we showing the Chelsea-Liverpool game that no-one was watching. We then continued our meander around the backstreets and found the bookshop in the photo that contains 18 miles of books! Its like theyve manged to put 5 million books in a space for 2 million books well worth a visit from there we walked upto the united nations building which was very austere and impressive then through grand central to wall street (lotsa security) and then to ground zero afterwhich we needed a drink so we went through a couple of irish bars and ended up in the hotel we stayed at a couple of years ago.
Boy thats gone upmarket! Cost us twice as much for a beer as we had been paying then a quick snack before riding home on the subway after being in town for well over 12 hours on our feet.
They do proper big breakfasts and homestyle cookingthe like of which Adny was dreaming about. You could have choked a donkey on the pancakes that he got with a punnet of strawberries and a banana grove or two thrown in for good measure!
It was a proper brekkie and now nearly 10 hours later I'm still not hungry. My omlette I'm sure had at least a battery farms worth of eggs in its construction. This was industrial grade delicious food at a ridcilously low price. Yum!
Then we set back out on the journey and stopped in a little town called Red Bank in New Jersey to visit a mecca of sorts for film geeks and comic nerds. Jay and bobs secret stash is the comic book shop that others aspire to. I was expecting a few comics, overpriced merchandise and rude staff. I found a massive store full of cool things and displays (yes actual displays ) from the films, lotsa comics and a counter jockey who was funny, knowledgable, and signed not one but two slips of paper with personal messages for those back home who were unable to make it!
If you ever find yourself in NJ drop in because the atmosphere there was just lovely. it was a nice town as well with an actual town centre not just a bunch of shops on the outskirts.
From there it was time to get back on the motorway through the hilarity of rush hour new york traffic (mostly going the other way thank god) and to Jersey city which is within spitting distance of manhatten. We are actually in the hotel which is the last building before the Holland tunnel! We are that close!
Then the breakfast having been a dim and happy memory we headed into manhatten. We had to take the PATH train under the hudson, with a train guard who looked like he could go a few rounds with any heavyweight contender but had about 20 Star Trek communicators attached to his hat!
We walked out of the PATH train into the madness of manhatten on a weekday evening. If you've never been try to imagine a scrum pushing in seventeen directions at once comprised of several thousand people. And thats on a slow day.
We headed north to a place we'd been when we were last here and had happy memories of. The time square brewery however was not to be found at any place or price. We think its been taken over and turned into a shoe store which, to be frank, is a tragedy! However we did find the Heartland brewerywhich did good food and beer (both expensive) which made for a suitable repast.
They make all their own beers on site and they range from a lovely coffee stout to a lager with had aromatic hints of citrus, delicous.
We had the sample tray of six different types of beers so got to try them all. One guy there, not with us, knew exactly what he wanted and got the 'godess' size glass which holds I think we worked out to about 6 pints!! Watching him hoist this vase high and start guzzling the contents I felt a strong sense of pride and not a little worried for his morning after!
We walked back down to 33rd street and took about 30 mins to find the correct entrance for the station we needed. (32nd and 6th for future reference)
Andy and Llion had talked in vauge terms before we came here about possibly taking Moby (our car) through the streets of Manhatten in the wee hours just so they could say we'd done it.
After reminding ourselves how most people in manhatten have to drive I think we've sensibly nixed that plan.
The hotel is a 15 min walk from the PATH station and it feels like its the right place to be with a car. If didn't have the car the main island would be the place to be but this is an entirely resonable alternative. The bedsare soft and huge, the staff seem nice and so far its been positive! lets see what tomorrow brings.
Kara had hurt her ankle in the night so decided not to join us in DC which was probably a good idea. AS soon as we got out of the car at the metro the heavens opened and a torrent of drenching rain engulfed us.
Considering everyone got a bit sunburnt yesterday that shows how changable the weather around here is!
We went to the Smithosian art exhibit type thing with lots of cool painting and some Gicacometti sculptures (which em adores) I love going to galleries with her because her enthusisam for these works of art is infectious. Also she talks about them in terms a non-arty person like me can understand. My main bugbear about art is the artists attempts to overanaylse it and give deep layers of meaning to things that have none.
Damien hursts Shark in a tank is a perfect example of this. Personally I think its cool. Its a shark. In a tank. Thats cool.
But to hear other people, arty people, talk about it you'd think he was the second coming or something. It doesn't represent the symbol of humanity, we are not all sharks encased in our own glass prison of concious. It's a shark. In a tank. It's cool.
And thats why looking at art with em is great because she looks at it knowing the pretentious wankyness but she sees through that it the actual worth of the piece and the talent that was required to bring it into being.
ANYWAY!
From there via a delicious hotdog, we went to the Air and space part of the Smithsonian and saw some cool WWII fighters and some of the earliest fighter jets which is something I love. That period in history has always fired my imagination.
From there we had a quick break back at the hotel then we had a burger at a joint called Five Guys and had a quiet night in with papa Johns pizza beer and Red Dwarf.
Its a cherry blossom festival at the moment (hunh?) and I have never seen quite so many people OBSSESSED with the blossom. Just strange man.
So the capital was heaving but we saw the steps of senate where Obama got inugrated and the washington needle before moving down to the WWII memorial, the vietnam memorial and the Lincon memorial before ending up at the whitehouse.
All of which were good but the vietnam memorial wall really hits you. It was really busy with people looking for the names of friends and family taken away by that conflict. Theres a statue of three GIs just coming back from patrol and they're looking towards the names on the wall as if to say "Damn. Somebody remebered us." It had a very powerful effect on me even though I have no actual connection to that conflict.
From there we walked back to the metro and on to Arlington cemetary where they honour those who served the country going back to the civil war and beyond. They also have a memorial to those killed in the locherbie bombings.
Quite a lot of death to think about on such a sunny day, but I was impressed with the way the americans were all very respectful of these places of national identify and pride.
From there it was back to the hotel and then onto Karas Sister Kristens house which is a gorgeous three level townhouse. Quite often with these new builds the house itself overwhelms the personality of its owners but Leo and Kristin are such strong fun characters that their house actually reflects and echos their tastes in a lovely way.
Speaking of tastes their garlic marinaded tri tipped beef was a whole new kind of delicious. add to that gartin potatos and a neapolitan bunt cake and you're talking some seriously classy food.
We had a few beers, chatted a lot and came home with a sense of achivement for a day well spent.
We drove all told for the best part of eleven hours, from Conneticut through new york (Passing Westchester; 5 geek bonus points if you know why that's cool.) New jersey Pennsyvania, Maryland and Washington DC. We stopped off at the Yuengling brewery for a quick tour which was awesome. They make possibly the best american beers I've tasted, including a Porter which is all kinds of awesome. Even their lager is a treat for anyone used to the chemicals 'n' foam of budweiser et al.
The picture above is the lagering caves where the beer is turned into larger over a couple of months. Now of course it's all done through serious cooling technology but way back when it had to be done through the cold constant temperature of the cave system. The brewery even survived through prohibition by selling their porter as a health tonic to anemic and nursing mothers! As you may imagine the number of cases of anemia skyrocketed after prohibition kicked in!
pottsville where the brewery is is a strange town. Obvious very old the streets are narrow and crooked in a way any british person would find comforting. it in a kind of alpine area that is one of the prettiest areas I think I've seen over here.
After that it was time to grab my favourite fast foo, taco bell (See the archives for my treatise on why its the best foodstuff known to man) and then another 4 hours on the road.
As we got within 5 miles of the hotel some fucker pulled onto the motorway made all the cars stop dead and caused a pileup the like of which I've never seen. The car behind us braked too hard severed into the concrete barrier in the middle of the road and flipped his SUV fully two rotations before landing back on its wheels and being rammed by the car behind him. all the cars behind them piled into the back of them and jammed the motorway solid.
We were within feet of having an SUV land on our roof.
And worst of all the car that caused this serious accident has no idea that his sheer fuckwittery caused this to happen.
I apologise for swearing but we're all pretty shaken up.
Anyway, 'breath' After we'd recovered we checked into the hotel and went out to downtown alexandria for dinner, it was pretty busy so after a couple of places we got to a Tapas bar which was excellent. Steve and kara had never had tapas before so I ordered for everyone and they were very impressed with the free for all nature of teh affair.
It did help that the tapas was excellent!!
We stopped into an irish bar on the way home for a quick drink and I was amazed to find EVERYONE in there was smoking. It made for such an unpleasant atmosphere it was a weird reminder of how things used to be in the UK and I'm so glad they've now changed.
Looking forward to new york where no-one smokes.
Sleep now.
Taco bell.
Built up DC
Near smash.
hotel
Alexandria main street Tapas and an IRish bar where everyone and I mean everyone was smoking.
Bed, sweet bed.
I don't often run at home, unless its along the walkway by the beach and even then I refer to it quite accurately as the 2 mile dog-shit dash.
The pavement over here are mercifully clean of dog waste and it was exactly the right weather for running. Cool but not cold with a slight damp in the air. I went back to the graveyard we passed yesterday and took some more photos, hoping there was no law about running on the tarmaced paths inbetween the gravestones.
I love getting to a new place and feeling the pavement beneath my feet. I suppose its my way of centering myself in a place, like a dog turning around three times before lying down. It makes me feel part of a place rather than a total alien in a strange land.
Coffee, Eggs and American bacon (Tasty yet crunchy) followed and then we were off to Mark Twains house which was about 20 minutes away.
I didn't know much about Mr Twain before the tour but I have top say I will be checking out some more of his works. Any man that smokes 30 cigars a day, has a billard table in his writing room and says things like "Travel is fatal to predjudice" and "Respect your superiors. If you have any." deserves to be read.
The picture above is Mark Twains wife who bears an uncanny resemblance to someone.......who could it be? ? ?
We picked up Kara and headed to a mexican place called On The Border. My obession with mexican food is well documented and I've blogged afew time about how much i miss it when Imaway from teh states. This was a fitting return to one of my favourtie items of food.
yum.
Then we headed down to Mystic where they have a submarine museum with an actual sub that you walk around. It was soooooooo cool seeing something that I'd only seen in movies before. Those hatches and really quite short Em kept giggling that shes found her natural home as one of the other three tall boys kept banging our heads.
We stopped for petrol on the way to dinner and I had one of those weird experiences you only get while you travel.
First though a word on Americans.
I have found, through my fairly extensive travels through the US 99.9% of americans to be absolutley lovely. Warm friendly and genuine in a totally open way which can set some distusting people on edge .
So one older guy by the pump got talking to me and he had spent 6 months in university in Brighton and had the best time. Which was cool. And then the cashier took one look at my fleece and enthused "Oh my God! I love your jumper! I just want to stroke it!" I preoffered my arm and he proceeded to give it a quick pat while proclaiming "I used to have one of these and I used to stroke myself all the time!".
I drew away my arm, not unhastley, praying that he'd at least washed his hands since then.
So like I say, genuine people, whether thats a good thing or not I suppose depends on the circumstances!
After that we went for a vietnamese meal in a place that steve and kara raved about and they were right to be frank, it was delicious. I couldn't give you names of the food items but there werer fried egg rolls followed by a tyupe of soup noodle combo washed down with Tsing Tsao beer. My idea of heaven.
I'm going to be sad to leave conneticut. I've been here twice now and i still feel like theres more stuff to do to get under teh skin of the place. I think thats probably the right way to leave a place. Always wanting more....
Tomorrow we head for DC where I've never been before. Its a good feeling.
I was up around 5:30 doing some research on the PC and checking email / writing. I like this holiday lark. The last time we were away in scotland was the last time I felt this comfortable and this inspired to write.
So gradually the house awoke and various rounds of toast and coffee were consumed. Then the four of us piled into Moby and headed out into the wilds of conneticut heading for the nearest mall.
Barnes and Noble are a bookshop in the same way Tescos is a corner shop. They have so many books the whole place is in danger of reaching critical mass of knowledge. You could loose yourself in the map section its that big.
After that we went onto Llions favourite guitar store where they also had hundreds and hundreds of guitars bases amps keyboards...musicians nirvana basically. That was very cool but nothing really tempted llion excpet for a rather nice headless bass which for some reason reminded me of David Bowies guitar in his 'Tin Machine' days.
We came back to the house to pick kara up and headed to Catsup and mustard which is a burger joint in Manchester itself which serves the bestest burgers ever! After that we took a long break back at the house and walked into town which was a good way of acclimatising to the different pace of things out here, we stopped in a park and chilled out for a bit before heading back to the house. We passed a graveyard and Em noticed that all the gravestones from about 1760-1800 had the same figure of an angel on the top of them. This graveyard was so old a tree had grown up and amalgamated a gravestone into its trunk! It just looked wrong in a horro movie way!
Steve came back just after we did and kara cooked a delicious veggie curry and sweet and sour chicken. the veggie curry had bits of tofu in it which actually made it worked really well.
Then we headed out to an upscale arcade which was kind of cool, I tried two totally new things to me. Dance Dance revolution and skeeball. Skeeball is like a coits and hoops type game with balls and ramps if that makes any sense. And DDR (Which is what all the cool kids are calling it ) is ubiquitous in the UK but still this was the first time I'd seen a machine without a gaggle of kids surrounding it waiting to laugh me off. It was really fun even if it was on Waltz setting rather than Super-Hyper-techno-techno-techno-techno.
Back to the house for lots of lovely sleep. Woot!
This may not make sense as I'm very tired, excited and wired on bad American sugar products (which were delicious).
The taxi was early picking us up and we weren't totally ready. Did I mention it was 4:30 AM? The trip to the airport was enlivened by Llion describing a particular adult practice in graphic detail, with hand gestures, in front of the very straightlaced taxi driver. And then realising his faux-par.
Manchester airport was busy, noisy and full of that airport smell, the mixture of duty free perfume, boredom and fear.
The flights were nondescript. To be fair to the travel industry everything works really rather well and routinely now. I could moan about bratty kids, crying babies and food so bland it was indistuingishable from the container it came in but really, what would be the point?
If you've ever flown you've expereienced the same or similar and me bitching about it won't be enlightening or funny in any way.
What I can say is Logan airport in Boston is one of the nicest and quickest entries to the US that I've ever had. From touchdown to car rental place in less than 20 minutes. Heaven. After some of the nightmares I've had in Atlanta it was a blessed relief!
So from the airport theres a specfic car rental bus that will take you to your assigned vehicle (If you're a member of the elite prefferred gold standard car rental service.) If you're a pleb like what we is then they drop you off at the shack and you have to fend for yourself!
We got there to find we hadn't hired an actual car, its not even a mini-van, its what can only be described as a maxi-Van. Its like an entire continent on wheels, with shag pile carpet so thick there are lost pygmy tribes somewhere around the boot (trunk).
The glaring white paint job doesn't really help it blend in any better and gave birth to its nickname "Moby" as in Moby Dick rather than that very nice purveyor of crossover dance music.
We headed out on the massetucets turnkpike with the wind at our back the sun oin the air and nothing to stop us but an endless line of tollbooths streching ahead into the distance.
We stopped for a traditional american meal (McDonalds) at a place that housed a statue of what seemed to be a cross between Ronald McDonald and the T1000.
We didn't linger.
We made it to steve and karas for about 5-ish. They have this gorgeous three level townhouse in a leafy suburb equipped with all the geek stuf one could ever dream of and the comfyest of comfy beds. We already knew their cat Sasha but when Em took one look at their hypoalergenic dog Bridie I knew it was love!
After a stunning gnocchi and salad meal it was time for a few rounds of Soul calibur 4 before bed. Button mashing techniques were in full effect and we retired happy after a solid 24 hours on the go.
ORKNEY SEPT 2023 23/09/2023 When it comes to the best time to visit the remote Islands of Orkney off the north coast of Scotland, most peo...
