Around the Flat

I think I am finally getting used to a few things here in our flat, it has been a year after all.......


My Closet
Our flat is quite small, like everyone's in London (unless you are super-loaded, with like millions and millions of dollars/pounds). Hence, my clothes closet is also quite small. In the U.S., I had a giant walk-in closet that was all mine. Dave also had his own closet for all four t-shirts he owns. And these closets were contained within what would be considered a very small house by U.S. standards.

In London, it is so different.

Here is my closet, GASP.

OK I also have this space for sweaters, jeans, and t-shirts.

To be fair, I work from home and have no need for a work wardrobe of matching slacks and blouses (does anyone else hate those two words, slacks and blouses). I can easily get by with the few clothes you see in the photos. However, I really like only having the clothes I like to wear. I mean really, how many clothes does one actually need.I am finding out, not many.

There is no room for extras. As soon as I am tired of a piece of clothing, it goes to the Charity Shop (kind of like a Goodwill). The rest of London operates this way also, which means that there are some NICE clothes at the Charity Shops here.


The Self-Watering Garden
The only real benefit of all the effing rain here lately is that we don't ever have to water our wee little garden. Aside from the tomato seedlings, the sky amazingly provides water - all year long.

I have clearly lived in California for too many years to find this hole rain-thing remarkable.......

Look at those beauties.

No Clothes Dryer
I am actually not quite used to this...... Instead of a dryer, the washing machine bakes our clothes after they are clean. Then you are meant to hang them to finish drying. This arrangement is cool in the summer when it is sunny and not raining, not so cool in the winter and most of the year when it is raining. So we had to get this guy in the photo, The DeLonghi dehumidifier extraordinaire.

It helps keep the air dry for our clothes, we have to keep it on most of the time tough. The paint regularly peels off the walls in our apartment because it is a basement flat. And I have this whole OCD thing about breathing mold spores and having them lodge in my lungs and kill me......so we keep the dehumidifier on a lot. He is my friend.


 In Other News
 Yes, the Olympics are almost here. Let the annoyance and crowds begin!

Get ready peeps.

OK, I am getting excited actually. We have tickets to some good events. I'll make Dave write about that since he was in charge of ticket purchases. I couldn't be in charge of ticket purchases because we would have ended up watching the events at a bar on a TV - those effing Olympic tickets are EXPENSIVE.

Favorite London Restaurants

The Current Favorites
I thought I would compile a list of our favorite restaurants here in London for when people as me where they should eat while visiting. Obviously we keep finding new "favorites", but this is as good of a place to start as any. So here it goes......

Dabbous
Summed Up: FANCY PANTS
The menu is a work of art and the service is perfect. You'll never get a resy, don't even try......I got REALLY lucky on a Wednesday night and got in. Do not despair though, they have a basement bar where you can try an imaginative cocktail and a few of the menu items - without a reservation.


Da Polpo
Summed Up: AFFORDABLE
This is our no-reservations standby restaurant. Everything is good and the food is served on small plates so you can try lots of dishes. Plus it is inexpensive. Have one of their awesome Negronis while you are waiting for a table, because you will likely have to wait a while.

The 10 Cases
Summed Up: TINY AMAZING MENU
A friend introduced us to The 10 Cases a few months ago. They have a menu on the wall of just a few items, all creative and tasty. I went there recently and had a pig cheek salad, which was outstanding. The have an affordable wine list that focusus on wines from smaller vineyards.

River Cafe
Summed Up: GORGEOUS ENVIRONMENT
We have only eaten here once because: a) it is pricey, and b) it is out in Hammersmith. However, the architecture, setting along the Thames, and heavenly Italian-esque food make the River Cafe a perfect lingering-lunch location.

Shoreditch Street Food
Summed Up: WORLD FEAST, VEG HEAVY
I love going to Shoreditch for a delish street food lunch on a sunny day, so does the rest of London. It gets really crowded over there, but you cannot beat the variety of foods on offer (Moroccan, Caribbean, Cuban, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Lebanese, Irish, you name it). 


Borough Market
Summed Up: FARMERS MARKET DELUXE
Get your groceries for the week and have lunch while you are at it. This is the best farmers market (hands-down) that I have been to in London. After shopping I'll grab a Brindisa chorizo sandwich with arugula and roasted red peppers, washed down with a glass of Prosecco, then maybe a flat white from Monmouth Coffee.Yum.

Sartori
Summed Up: NEAPOLITAN PIZZA
Wood fired, thin crust pizza - enough said. It is superb, and easily the best I've had in London so far.

40 Maltby
Summed UP: LOCALVORES ONLY
This tiny restaurant is located under a railway arch, I am serious. The kitchen is about the size of my bathroom (miniscule), but the cooks do magical things in there. The wine and food menus require an adventurous appetite - get ready for entrails - but so good. No reservations of course.

Hawksmoor Guldhall
One Word: MEAT.
And I don't even really like meat, but the perfectly cooked steaks here are amazing. The service is hit or miss, but the food makes up for it. If you are on a diet, don't go here.

Pimlico Fresh
Summed Up: POST-PARTYING BREAKFAST
This place is right by our house. They have a super-friendly staff serving divine breakfasts and lunches. I am not sure what they put in their scrambled eggs (probably heavy cream) but man are they good. No wifi, so sit your ass down and enjoy your food, no work allowed.


Soif
Summed Up: MODERN FRENCH-ISH
When you order a wine and it is sold out but then the French-speaking staff recommends a cheaper, better wine - you know you are in a good place. While a bit far from a tube stop for me, the French/Mediterranean food is well worth the trip on my bike. Now if it would just stop raining here for that bike ride.

More Work to Do
Here is where we want to go. Please suggest other restaurants, I love a good recommendation.

• Barrafina
• Petersham
• Fox and Anchor
• Texture
• Terroirs Restaurant and wine bar
• St. Johns
• Pit Cue Co
• Brawn
• Roti Chai
• The Corner Room
• Trangallan
• Cotidie
• Dukes Brew and Que
• High Life
• Les Deux Salons
• Mishkins
• Salt Yard
• Opera Tavern
• Bread Street
• Ducksoup

Geez My Legs Are White (Italy, Country #13)

We spent a few short days on the island of Sicily. It was gorgeous, but we were there for 5 days and that was not enough time. We went specifically to Catania and Taormina - with a day trip to the inland town of Randazzo.

Catania

We arrived in Catania late at night, took the bus into town, and quickly realized (shit) that I had made our hotel reservation at Gem De Luxe for the wrong night. So there we were, 11:00pm, eating dinner at a table on the sidewalk at a little restaurant, and NO hotel reservation…….shit. Upon hearing our plight in my really crappy Italian, our waiter (and several of the old Sicilian men also eating at the restaurant) pointed us to the Hotel Romano House down the street. We were not led astray, that place is NICE.

Getting lost (aka. trespassing) in a gorgeous courtyard.

No one does an old-and-crumbling patina quite like Italy, though France is a close second. Catania is a great place to wander and take in the architecture. The town feels like a non-sinister (and much cleaner) Naples. We saw all the major monuments and churches easily in a day. However, the highlight of Catania for us was the morning street market. Every fish, cheese, meat, fruit, and vegetable you can imagine – including quite a few things I had never seen before. Once again, I am finding a correlation between how much I like a country and how much to-go food and coffee they have (i.e. there wasn’t any here so I loved it).

Sorry for the food porn.

Catania got me thinking - so the Italians get loads of vacation time; eat a HUGE variety of fruits and veggies, drink great cheap wines; suffer from way less heart disease, cancer (despite all the smoking), and depression…….so who is rich and who is poor? Debate amongst yourselves.

One of the street markets, a million tents.

Our typical lunch, octopus and Caprese salad.

 

Taormina

This was meant to be a relaxing vacation, which is tough for Dave and me since neither of us can sit still for 5 minutes. We stayed at the Villa Astoria (which I cannot recommend enough, especially at €85 a night for an ocean view room with a balcony). The hotel owner, Mauro, significantly contributed to our relaxationamente (one of Dave's made up Italian words) by discouraging us from renting a car for the day - too much traffic, too complicated and expensive; and taking a bus-train-bus-taxi to Siracusa for the day, which Dave probably accurately described as taking mass transit from Palo Alto to Marin - you could do it, but why in your right mind would you. 

So while I think we may have missed some cool stuff, I think we were better off hanging out in Taormina and just enjoying ourselves. We managed a day trip to Randazzo, but that was about it. Sicily is WORTH another (much longer) visit in the future. 

St. John the Baptist festival in Randazzo.

Old stuff in Randazzo.

This is where we had our aperitivo in Taormina each night, redic.

 

Lunch on a random side street.

 

Besides the amazing Mauro, I also liked that the Villa Astoria is near the main bus terminal and is adjacent to a trail that led right down to the beach. It is about a 10 minute walk down and maybe 15 or 20 minutes up (if you stop to take in the views every 100 feet like we did). In summary we did a lot of wandering, checking out of old stuff, eating, swimming, and goofing off. 

 

Here is a Taormina report card so you don’t get bored reading:

- Day trip on the bus to Randazzo in the Mount Etna foothills: B-

- Fancy-pants dinner at the Hotel Timeo: C

- Hikes to Castelmore and the various ruins above the city: A

- Dave almost having a heat stroke at the top of Castelmore, which then turned into a coughing fit     where I thought he was going to croak: D-

- Lemon granitas after the near-death experience: A+

- The Roman ruins randomly scattered throughout Taormia: A

- Greco-Roman coliseum in Taormina: B

- Isloa Bella and surrounding beach: A+

- Adjacent beach town of Letojanni: B- (reminded us of parts of Puerto Vallarta or Sayulita, but definitely not for everyone)

- Eating a million figs, cherries, and apricots each day, warm from the sun and perfectly ripe: A

Mount Etna, ominously smoking.

No words.

In summary it was wonderful, friendly, tasty, and a great trip. Ireland is next week, then we are trying to work in a bit of France in early July, then the London Olympics!

Taormina Logistics (the stuff I had trouble finding out about/think is helpful)

- There is a direct bus from the Catania Airport to Taormina, super easy and it runs every hour plus a few extra buses during the afternoons. The timetable is here at the Interbus website.

- Taormia itself is elevated from the beach, so you either hike, take the free shuttle bus, or take the cable-car (3€ per person one-way).

- A car is completely impractical for Taormina, don’t bring one. Instead, maybe rent a car for a day from one of the many agencies in town.

- If you want to go to Siracusa, plan to stay the night there due to generally inconvenient train and bus schedules. Catania would be an easy day-trip from Taormina though – and go EARLY for the market!

- Stay at the Villa Astoria, you won’t regret it.

- It isn’t worth dining at the expensive restaurants in town, so look down the side streets off of Corso Umberto. All the restaurants have very similar menus, and the food is good everywhere.

- A good local medium-bodied white can be found for less than $20 at any restaurant. Try a Grillo, Carricante, or Cataratto – perfect with all the seafood here. 

The English Countryside - Devon, UK

Our gorgeous friends R.C. and J.C. invited us to go to Devon with them a few weeks ago, OF COURSE we jumped at the chance to see the English countryside with real Brits (not with fake Brits like us). J.C.'s parents have a house in Devon and we were to all stay there together. Sounds magnificent, we'll escape the city and go to the coast.

Wait, where the hell is Devon? I thought it was a city, but it is actually a county in southwestern England. We were in the north part Devon, you could see Wales to the north across the Bristol Channel - and not whales mind you......but Wales.

So we took off from London on Friday for the 4-hour drive to Devon in "Stella", R.C. and J.C.'s, adorable hatchback. After filling Stella's tank with gas (at roughly $9.00 a gallon, none of you wussy Americans are EVER allowed to complain about gas prices to me again), we set off - not really knowing where we were headed or what it would be like. The fact that it was supposed to rain all weekend didn't scare us, we are Londoners now.


OK first of all, the house is amazing. It is every English-manor cliche you can imagine. The house is technically located in the town of Lynton, immediately adjacent to the Exmoor National Park. The big thing there in Devon/Lynton/whatever (besides ridiculously good food) is walking, and by walking I really mean hiking - but the Brits just call it "walking". There are miles and miles of public walking trails through the hills and coastline here, mostly as part of the 630 mile South West Coast Path. Awesome!

We stayed at the highest house in the middle of the photo there, yep amazing.

Part of the South West Coast Path we took, J.C. are we lost?

OK so it did rain the first day......and it was windy.......and it was cold. But never mind that. There was hiking to do. So we braved the elements and hiked, er walked.

Soaked to the bone, but happy nonetheless.

At Watersmeet Bridge.

When we returned, soaked and muddy (and slightly drunk after beer and some of the best freaking oysters I have ever eaten at the Rising Sun pub), and J.C.'s mom had made us butternut squash soup and quiche. I felt so pampered, and also really touched by their generosity.

The Gun Show.

Lunch evolved into napping, and then into dinner. Luckily, Dave and I brought plenty of champagne and wine (from our recent trip to Bordeaux). We are good guests after all, well - when Dave contains his colorful comments, we are good guests.

Smiles all around, and not just because of the wine.

Group shot, no flash dammit. The ocean is right out that window, and 500 feet down.

The next days were partly sunny, which was fine with me. I'll take what I can get lately! So we did some more walking, I mean hiking.

Nice.

Looks a bit like the Napali Coast, only freezing.

The remainder of the time was spent practicing our Welsh accents, drinking, relaxing, talking, and eating. You get some really great meats, veggies, and cheese in this part of England. A real food Renaissance has taken place in the last few years and we are the lucky benefactors here in Devon (and London too).

Many, many thanks J.C. and R.C. and parents. We had a great time!

You know how I feel about eggs. This is how they should look, and TASTY too.

I Don't Need to do That Again - Brighton, UK

Perhaps it is the weather here in London (awful lately) or my slight jetlag having returned from San Francisco 4 days ago, but WTF is up with Brighton and why do people go there? I was clearly not impressed, so now you really want to read on - don't you.

Brighton is an easy 40 minute train ride from London. So we decided to enjoy the FIRST SUNNY DAY in a freaking long time and head south to the coast and Brighton.

I would say Brighton is a lot like Santa Cruz, but with less meth and homeless people. The temperature was about the same (i.e. freezing), and it seemed like there were a lot of people wandering around going, "why the hell do people come here" - just like Santa Cruz. There are also weird carnival rides and the assorted carnival junk foods - such as candy floss (makes me think of underwear but it is just cotton candy), mini doughnuts, and bad fish and chips. At least they had skiball. But at 50p per play, which is like almost 1 USD right now, it was a little rich for my taste.

Hey look, I'm cold.

After walking around for an hour or so and realizing there wasn't shit to do, we rented bikes and decided to ride along the coast. Uhm, great idea EXCEPT, a) the only bikes to rent were super huge beach cruisers that weighed about 60lbs, and b) the winds were blowing about 50mph off the water. This was excellent on our way out of town. We had 5 or 6 miles of pure tailwind, and then on the return......mother of god. People were walking faster than we were pedaling.So that was a fun 1.5 hours.

He looks happy because we had the tailwind here still.

Douche.

The one bright spot of the day in Brighton was lunch at Riddle and Fins.We had the works: oysters, mixed shellfish, bouillabaisse, fresh asparagus, and a gorgeous bottle of french white (plus 2 beers for Dave, Anchor Steam - not even kidding). I may have lead poisoning, or whatever you can get from over-consumption of shellfish.

Nom nom nom.

Heaven in a bowl.

These little snails were called whelks, new food for both of us.

OMG, really. This one is for R.S., she has that whole cake obsession-thing going.

Sunday made up for Saturday's visit to Brighton. Here's why:


While visiting SF last week, I was lamenting the sad absence of bagels in London. My coworker A.K. reminded me that there are bagels at Brick Lane in East London, which I totally forgot!!!! Real bagels, not those shitty (sorry, but I am using the word shitty appropriately here) things from Noah's. These are the water-boiled kind of bagels that are dense and tasty, not bready. Oh AND they pile "salt beef" on your bagel. Cream cheese is for wussies after all. 

Dear god, is this kosher?

Since I missed the Diamond Jubilee because I was in SF being warm, here is the best tribute to the Queen I have seen yet. This is above the pay-toilet at Victoria Station. Come on, check out the crown on the chick. That is some outstandingly patriotic graffiti.

Sorry for the tasteless toilet humor.

Prometheus - 10 Things That Made it Suck

Prometheus - The non-prequel from Riddly Scott that I just saw was to say the least disappointing.  I'm not a huge movie buff, I do like the Batman's made by Chris Nolan and anything sci-fi especially if it includes time travel, vampires or space.  So when a future sci-fi movie made by a man who made Aliens and Blade Runner you have high expectations (eg. not Hollywood mainstream shit).

So if you haven't seen Prometheus stop reading now.

10 Reasons Why Prometheus Sucked.

1. Noomi Repace and her boyfriend were horribly mis-cast.  She was great in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but this seems misplaced for this role and was trying to hard to find the "edgy" new Sigourney Weaver.  They could have done better and it's clear she spent a lot of time teaching her to speak American style English so at least she has that but it was part of the problem.

2. Noting the above, they are both supposed to be hard core scientists.  They come off as jockesqe dumbfucks who follow nearly zero scientific protocol by any stretch.  They almost run around like steroid pumped up children trying to pull the wings off butterflies.  I understand you've got to have protagonist events and things need to screw up to progress the movie.  However this borders on insane if you think someone is going to do some of the shit they did.  Yes, let's ALL take our helmets off on a foreign planet even after we're encountering clearly bio-hazards at close range.   Thank god somebody said once, after it was way too late, "I wouldn't touch that".  They really focused on the fi and not the sci.  Only exception to this is when someone is clearly "infected" and The Mission Director won't allow them on the ship.  Finally someone takes matters into their own hands, follows some protocol and common sense not seen since the pop corn counter.

3. Very convenient that after flying for 2.5 years (assuming at some imaginable speed) they fly down to the planet completely unaware of it's terrain and just happen to fly right down on some temple like structure and set down.  They literally say, "go right down that canyon" and they find the movie set.

4. Ok, again, you are supposed to believe that they have a ship that can take them this far.  They have little floating balls that start mapping the structure with lasers building a holographic 3d model in real time.  Then two crew members get lost and then it hits you how bad the technology disconnect really is.  The captain says, "soon to be dead guy #1, what is your location?".  How do you A. get lost, B. not know where you are when the captain has a 3d holographic model of the full temple thing right behind you?  The fact that the dialog actually reinforces this mis-match is the really bad part.

5. The Android guy, I don't know his name from Prometheus but it is the Ash from Alien.  From nearly the very beginning you realize that he has his own directed agenda that The Mission Director, (played by Charlise Therone) clearly is to some extent complicit in, goes rogue almost from second one and no one seems to notice...ever.  Are they all blind or stupid or... never mind.

6. You'll start to see a pattern in my complaints.  Sci-fi  rule set up and don't violate.  Star Trek did this very well.  Set up rules for your world, technology or premise, stay within those rules and all is fine.  Once again, Noomi gets her self  "pregnant" and needs a quickly abortion.  She programs an automated medical pod to perform said procedure.  She has what is basically a C-Section in a hasty fashion (time was of the essence) including metal staples to close her wound.  Then she escapes, suits up and goes back into action.  METAL STAPLES!  This means they didn't bother to suture anything inside, no anesthesia, she was actively programming the medial unit while she was open and has no fluid or lasers or reason to make me believe that this machine didn't perform a procedure on the back streets of Sao Paulo.  She's fine, she's tough, shakes it off and moves on.

7. Blatant sensationalism.  On que, of course the storm is coming, they need to get to the ship, the "artifact" conveniently falls just before they get in, prompting the irrational run into the storm to get it.  This sets up the have to be rescued by the android (maybe this was an attempt to foster trust in him?  See #5).  Then there is the 2012 version of S. Weaver in her undies which would be fine except...  Both Charlise and Noomi do their part in the skimpy towel like bikini / underwear thing (so much for futuristic theme, this looks uncomfortable and about to fall apart and doesn't look supportive at all, not that they need it).  While I appreciate it where you can squeeze it in, this is just retarded.  Charlise starts out doing push ups after waking from her sleep pod.  Kind of hot, but why?  Walking from the pod, to her changing room I can see but this is almost product placement.  Oh by the way, they don't even do a good job of editing here.  When it is her, she does these half push ups and has some trouble.  Cut to the stunt double and she's banging them out like Sylvester Stalone style practically doing one arms.  Noomi spends even more time in her "bandages" and isn't sexy...mostly the context...blood and shit all over her and longer than we need.  See #6.  Oh and her hair cut sucked.

8. After all hell has broken loose, Noomi tells the crew that the alien ship is leaving and she says they can't let them leave, small plea, big objection from the Project Director and 4 seconds later they pretty much unilaterally decide...suicide mission.  No other option thought about, no debate, just ramming speed...big explosion.  Really?

9.  The Mission Director (Charlise) wants nothing to do with the suicide mission and aborts in her escape hatch that can't travel and has two years of supplies on board.  Now what?  She has less supplies then it takes to get there and no way to get off....just longer suicide I guess?  Oh, and I forgot to mention that the guy pulling the Android's strings...yeah he's still alive and been on board the whole time.  Won't get into why but it's like pulling out the grampa guy from Jurassic Park and catering to his every whim cause he's old, dying and paid for the trip.  We are nearly past the point of return here anyway so let's give the old guy his last wish.....it's all of their last wish.  Speaking of last wishes, why did the human alien guy follow Noomi back to this pod to finish her off?  Why does he care?  You later find out there are other ships he could have taken, why the extreme need to kill her when infecting Earth was clearly more important 3 minutes before?

10. Let me get this straight.  Ancient aliens, traveled to Earth, committed suicide so his DNA would seed the earth with humans.  Left messages inviting us to come visit them including 5 circles on a cave wall pointing to some star system that clearly is the right one.  Then when we do go, we find an extinct dessert planet that doesn't look like it could ever sustain life (yes, I caught the terraforming the reference) only to find the same humans attempting to escape from something (conveniently through 3d holographic CCTV playback) and egg pods seemingly waiting for new humans or someone to hatch them.  Then we find out that you need an alien to infect a human, to create a new alien, to infect yet another human, to finally create THE alien.  All of this and the original humans were planning to franchise this industry to earth?

Yes, I get it, they are either slaves or clones or something where they are in the terraforming, cloning and farming them selves out for the aliens.  Now Noomi is racing through space to trace the chain back to the original source to answer this question but this was so bad that I don't see how this nice sequel set up can ever come to fruition....unless Riddly just wants to make movies for the sake of it and has lots of money to do it.  Just tell me what she finds, thanks.

PS. I didn't see the after credits part, so if you go see it, stay and tell me about it.

Where in the World is Amie

Well I am in the San Francisco Bay Area for a week. The weather is lovely, though slightly chilly for me. Perhaps I brought it from London. Really Weather Channel – you mock me.

This really sucks to have to return to......

I came here for a work check-in and to attend the gorgeous C.S.N.’s baby shower in Petaluma, which was really nice. C.S.N. has the most amazingly sweet friends, it must be something in that Petaluma water.

The ladies, J.Z. and I look like twins there.

The very sexy UCSB ladies, geez I have a getto-bootie in that one.

We rented a house in Inverness, well my girlfriends J.G. and J.Z. from So Cal rented a house. The rented it from VRBO (if you don't know about VRBO yet, you need to because it rocks). The house was gorgeous and I HIGHLY recommend it as a kid-friendly escape for anyone (toys, Jacuzzi, bad-ass swing-set http://www.vrbo.com/406541). I may have to go there again sometime with Dave, and not just for the swing-set. Come on, check out that view!

The view from the deck.

J.Z. and her killer socks!

Yoga in the living room.

J.Z.'s favorite yoga pose, weirdo.

I haven’t gone to see Sammy, which I am REALLY conflicted about. I am just so ridiculous about that little dog, I know if I see him there will be uncontrollable tears for hours. So I just cannot do it.

Other than that, I am working and catching up on yoga, real yoga -not the funny business above (Eric Wesoff you are my most fav yoga teacher, why do I love you so much). I also went to bookclub, we read The Ginger Tree – which spoke to the traveler in me. The next book is The Pillars of the Earth, which I just happened to have picked up at a charity shop in my neighborhood a few days ago. Nice, though the book is an intimidating million-pages-long.

What has Dave been doing? I am not sure. I talked with him today and he was cooking dinner and nursing his nasty hangover after way too much Queen’s Jubilee partying. Dave is apparently a royalist.