Fourth Of July Barbecues

I got back to the United States just in time for the summer to really kick into gear. This past Monday was the Fourth of July when the U.S. celebrates the country's declaration of independence from England way back in 1776. For me and lots of others in the U.S., it's when people start taking vacations and having pool parties and barbecues! What fun!

My weekend started out with my dad, Ginny, and my sister's family at my dad's condo in Wildwood. I came back up to the city on Sunday morning to go to a combo pool party and BBQ at my friend Brian's house, which isn't too far from where my dad lives. Brian and I hadn't seen or spoken to each other in years--since we were in high school together. We "met up" again through facebook recently and he invited me over for the party.

While at his house, I took this photo as I thought it's a perfect "All American" BBQ spread. You've got an ice-filled bucket with beer and soda, a tray of hot dogs and hamburgers, bottles of ketchup and mustard, potato and macaroni salads, an American flag motif, and the family dog. I'm not sure that you can get more American than this:

I had a great time getting to know Brian again and meeting his family and friends. Brian told me that he loves my writing and never misses one of my blog posts. I have to say that it's nice to have fans! Thanks for the great time Brian and lets not wait another 25 years to do it again!

The following day I went to another Fourth pool party and barbecue (do you see the pattern yet?). This one was thrown by my brother-in-law Larry's (Jr.) parents, Diane and (big) Larry. Their back yard was packed with at least 50 people. It was a very hot and humid day so lots of folks took advantage of the pool and, in this photo, were playing volleyball.

I snapped this photo right around dinner time when the "dads" took over the pool. I love how everyone has their own flotation device. My bro-in-law Larry is in the middle on the right:

Not only were the food, drinks, and desserts plentiful and good, they did a great job entertaining the kids. In addition to the pool, they had a piñata filled with candy and they held some sack races. I never thought much about (potato) sack races before but now that I've traveled to so many places around the world and now really notice cultural things like this, I spent some time trying to find out what the history of it is. I couldn't find anything very detailed (anyone want to write a book?) but what I did see suggested that it originated around the time of the (U.S.) Revolutionary War, which makes it seem even more appropriate for a Fourth of July BBQ. In this photo you can see two of my nieces (Brynn and Cori) on the left side along with two other girls:

Probably the best part of being back in Philadelphia (or at least the Philadelphia area) is getting to spend extended time with family. It seems that every time I'm here my breeder brother and sister have another kid. I love hanging out with all 29 of them (just kidding-only 6-but it seems like more). I was holding my nephew Danny when my arms got tired so I put him in a small plastic wagon and pulled him around the yard. He really seemed to enjoy it but probably not nearly as much as I did.

What can I say? Long-time friends, lots of family, pool parties, and barbecued meat. As the saying goes, it's about as American as apple pie. Happy birthday U.S.A. What time are the fireworks?

Bad Teeth Good Shoes

I remember someone once telling me that the British are famous for having bad teeth and good shoes. It was pretty funny at the time although I really didn't have enough first-hand experience to know if it was true. Now that I've been to London, I can definitely say that I saw some great shoes and some bad teeth. I don't know if either were better or worse than anywhere else but it got me thinking about other British/English cliches like the one that says British food is not very good.

My experiences with British food prior to this trip was at English and Irish pubs in the U.S. where they serve a mish-mash of food from the region including fish-n-chips, curried this-and-that, and so on. Other than that, I only had trips to Ireland and Scotland years before where I figured the food would be similar. The food in both of those countries turned out to be really good so I was looking forward to sampling the local food and drink in England.

My first meal was about an hour after arriving to town and it was at a fairly dirty-looking Indian take-out place near the B and B. I ate a super-greasy curried chicken and rice dish that was both cheap and surprisingly good. For dinner that night at a local pub filled with about 50% tourists, I ordered the "Pub Food Combo" and this is what I got:

It was a combo of mostly fried foods like chips (french fries), fish (as in fish-n...), bangers (sausage), mashed potatoes, a meat pie, gravy, and a couple of other items. It was sooooo typical and touristy that it made me happy. They must make a mint on serving up food like this to tourists. My guess is that it costs about $9 U.S. for this combo but they charge something like $23 U.S. for it. It turned out to be pretty good but nothing to write home about (oh, wait...).

The next day I ordered a meat pie with veggies. Growing up my parents used to make what we called "pot pie", which was similar. It's a pastry shell with a meat, veggie, and gravy filling that gets baked. I loved them as a kid and this meal made me reminisce about those days.

You might notice that I ordered an Aspall's cider for my drink. One thing that's great about being somewhere in the U.K. is that they serve draft ciders for folks like me that don't like beer. As with the apfelwein in Germany, I had more than a couple of them while there.

On my last day in town, I went to another local pub and ordered a beef-and-veggie dish along with another Aspall's. It was just okay to be honest and a bit pricey at something like $19 U.S. not including the drinks.

The food in London turned out to be good but not great. I didn't have any one meal that stands out in my memory like I did while in Ireland and Scotland. I'm sure with a local I could get much better since they'd know where to look. So let's review:

Good Shoes? Definitely.

Bad teeth? There were some.

Bad food? Not really. Overall pretty good but it left me wanting to dive deeper...maybe with a local guide next time.

Cliches debunked? Maybe.

Cheers for the fun quick visit London. See you next time.

London Part 2

My last post about the trip to London was mostly about the places that I visited while there. This one's more about some of the interesting things that I saw.

I mentioned in the last story about the kid's nursery rhyme London Bridge. I figured that I'd show a photo of the real London Bridge, which seems to be structurally sound much to the relief of children all over the world. It's basically just a multi-lane concrete span with the words London Bridge on each of the support columns:

It's not nearly as nice looking as the nearby Tower Bridge, which I think is a more iconic image of London. On the other side of London Bridge from the Tower Bridge, just in front of the Tate Modern Museum, is the Millennium pedestrian bridge. I liked this view of the bridge across the Thames where you can see Saint Paul's cathedral to the left, the pickle-shaped Gherkin building to the right, and a bunch of other interesting-shaped buildings between them:

I've written in the past about how there are certain things that I'd like to see one day but that aren't something I'd plan a whole trip around. They're places like the Taj Mahal or Teotihuacan that I'd like to see but only if I was already going to be in the area. One example is when I got to see Picasso's Guernica painting while in Madrid last year.

While in London, I got to see another of the items on that list: the Rosetta Stone. This 2,000-year-old chunk of rock was originally carved in Egypt. It has the same text written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian Demotic, and ancient Greek, which has allowed modern-day people the ability to translate the Egyptian hieroglyphs. I've especially wanted to see the Rosetta stone since I went to Egypt last year and got to see lots of hieroglyphs first hand. The picture isn't too great since the stone is kept in a glass case but it was very cool to get to see such an important artifact up close and personal:

This next item is not even in the same league as the Rosetta Stone but I wanted to take a photo for my sister-in-law Zahra who loves Freddy Mercury and Queen. It's a giant statue of Mercury advertising a Queen musical taking place at the Dominion theater in London. I figured she'd like it:

As you probably know, they drive on the "wrong" side of the street in the UK. You may not know it but about one-third of the world's population drives on the left side including Japan where I lived for a time last year. A couple of google search results suggest that people have been traveling "on the left" for a very long time so that they could use their right, dominant hand to defend themselves from people passing to their right. I'm not sure of the validity of that story but it is easy to visualize.

When I'm in left-hand driving countries, every time I cross the street, it's a bit nerve racking because I conscientiously have to think about it: look left-right-left instead of right-left-right, which I'm used to. I'm sure that many people end up getting hit by cars while they're on vacation in London since you have to actively think about it every time you cross the street. I definitely appreciate that they've taken the time to paint "Look Left" or "Look Right" at almost every corner.

Something that was a little surprising to me was the happy hour traditions that I saw. In Spain, people generally go hang out in an outdoor cafe or inside somewhere if they go out after work. It's part of the tradition to have lots of outdoor cafes in Barcelona and California but, probably due to the typical weather in London, bars and restaurants just aren't designed with outdoor seating all that often. I saw many scenes like this one below where people would go into the pub, get their drinks, and then go back outside to hang out on the sidewalk in front of the place. It's a fairly informal and fun practice in a city that seems on the surface to be relatively formal.

Finally, one of the other things that I've heard about all my life is the term Greenwich Mean Time. I had never spent much time or effort thinking about it except when I'm crossing the international date line 12 hours away. While we were over near the O2 arena, I saw a plaque showing the location of the mean and couldn't resist getting my picture with it. Also, it turns out, that my watch has been off by three minutes for who knows how long.

Even though it's super pricey, London's a fun town to visit at least once. I got to see and experience a bunch of fun and interesting things while there, including gorging myself on Cadbury chocolates and pub food, which I'll write about next time.