Last day in UK

Today is our last day in the UK; we fly back to London tonight (4/23) then back to LA first thing tomorrow morning (4/24). Poor D is feeling miserable, so we're going to try to take things a little slower today.

Several friends & Aunt MK recommended that we try to see Kilmainham Gaol (pronounced "kill mane him jail") while in Dublin, so we spent the afternoon there. It's no suprise that visiting a jail is a sobering experience; what I didn't expect was for there to be such a hearty dose of hope in the mixture.

Killmainham Gaol, like so much in Europe, is hundreds of years old. It's also the home to several of the saddest and bloodiest executions in recent Irish history. We coincidently visited on the 90 year anniversary of the Easter Rising ("uprising" in American english) in which the execution of 15 Dublin prisoners marked the beginning of the end of English rule over Ireland. It was a sad, ultimately tragic, incident for the Irish, but they're proud of the efforts of their forefathers, nonetheless. This was by far the saddest part of the visit.

The hopeful, and unexpected part, was in the architecture of the Victorian wing of the jail. In that era, architects and prison reformers greatly believed in the healing benefits of sunlight. Light was thought to be a great reformer of spirit and soul, as well as a way to ward off common prison ailments. So, unlike earlier prisons which were arranged in dank and dark often underground corridors, the new jail was built around a central atrium, with soaring ceilings, skylights and windows in each cell. This, of course, also afforded the guards a much easier means of observing the inmates, as the doors to the cells were now openly displayed.

Ultimately, the experiment failed, as recitivism rates were extraordinarily high in Kilmainham Goal, although that most likely had much more to do with the Irish Potato Famine than prison architecture.

After exploring the jail, we rode the bus (public transportation is always one of my favorite ways to people-watch in a foreing country) back to our neighborhood. We rounded out the day with a bit of souvenier shopping and a wonderful exploration of the Apollo Art Gallery where we discovered that we were big fans of the Irish artist, Paul Kerr.

Wicklow & Glendalough

What a luxury to actually get to sleep in! After a nicely late start, we went downstairs and sampled our first Irish breakfast. Ew. Tolerable scrambled eggs served up with a vegetarian nightmare of black & white pudding people over here use the word "pudding" to describe a bewildering array of foodstuffs), ham AND bacon. It was too much even for normally adventurous D; I stuck to fruit, pastries and suprisingly yummy cappucino.

Paddy, the wonderfully helpful & adorably accented concierge, had booked us on a daytrip to Wicklow & Glendalough, at the recommendation of my Aunt MK. A double-decker bus massively outsized our 11 person tour group, but it made for a comfortable trip. The tour guide sounded like Garrison Keeler faking a Dublin accent: all sleepy, sighing stories and rambling shaggy-dog jokes.

Once we reached the outskirts of Dublin county, the terrain changed considerably, becoming almost volcanic looking. This apparently was where the battle scenes in Braveheart were shot, on the scrubby brown and beige cold hilly landscape. It was beautiful in its own, bleak way.

Although we jumped out to take pictures at the Braveheart location, our first real stop was Glendalough (literally valley of two lakes) which seems to be something akin to an Irish national park. Next to the two lakes lay the ruins of an old abbey, with a beautiful cemetery filled with gravestones marked with traditional Celtic carvings. After exploring the ruins, and trying to help Damon see them as more than just "piles of rocks" we stretched our legs on a scenic "ramble" around the perimeter of the lakes.

The winding drive through Wicklow county and the Irish countryside reminded me more than anything of driving through Wisconsin: mostly green fields, occasional small rolling hills. Unlike much of continental Europe, the architecture of the country homes is not substantially different from the row houses we saw in Dublin. Driving through Irish farm country, I can understand how so many Irish immigrants ended up in the Midwest.

The second stop, Avoca, was supposedly a famous mill & woolen-crafting center, although it looked to me more like a poor excuse for a tourist trap: no more than a gift shop, cafeteria, and place for the bus to turn around before we headed back on the return trip to Dublin.

County Kerry & County Cork were definitely the places (outside of Dublin) most recommended to us, but those are just a bit to far for this trip.

Back in Dublin, we headed to dinner at Fitzer's in the Temple Bar district, which was decent but unremarkable. Damon seems to be coming down with some sort of a cold, so we're taking it easy this evening. It's too bad: Temple Bar looks like fun, with its smoke-free bars, friendly people and live music, but we'll have to visit in earnest on a future trip.

Dublin

Our trip to Dublin was brutal, but we're happy to be here. The Conrad Dublin is probably our favorite hotel so far: great location, comfy beds and wonderfully friendly and helpful hotel staff. Ironically this is the hotel we're getting for "free" off of D's hotel points.

Exhausted from the early flight, we collapsed for an hour or so, then wandered out through St. Stephen's Green. We had lunch at Lemon, a little fast-food crepe place, which turned out to be very good, especially considering it was the cheapest meal we've had on the whole trip.

After lunch we window shopped down Grafton street then wandered over to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells, the college library and a special exhibition on Samuel Beckett. The library was probably my favorite part, filled floor to ceiling two stories high with vellum books hundreds (some thousands) of years old.

The square lawn outside the Library was ringed with students enjoying the sunshine and unusually warm weather, so we sat on the old steps and rested with them, dangling our feet into the grass as if it were a big green swimming pool. A commotion and cheering students at the far end of the lawn caught our eye, where two college boys dressed as US marines suddenly dashed out into the center of the lawn. Barking at each other in bad American accents, pretending to shoot at imaginined enemies, they bumbled their way around the lawn in a parody of America bravado and military idiocy.

It's interesting to be an American traveler at this point in history; the country is so tremendously unpopular right now that people don't even try to hide their scorn. It's probably easier for D & me because we couldn't agree more with the rest of the world's criticisms of the US's policies at the moment. However, D's cousin told us a story at dinner the other night about getting suspended from school after fighting with a classmate who had said something insulting about Americans. He said because he's "half American" he felt compelled to stick up for the US, and was upset that his mom didn't understand.

D has been craving draft beer every day since we touched the ground in the UK, so we wandered off to find a pint (and a tourism office to help us plan the rest of the trip). A traditional Irish pub across the street from the tousit office caught his eye, and we went in to rest our aching feet and have a Guinness on tap. As soon as we sat down we were cornered by two Dubliners, both very friendly and very drunk. We chatted for a few minutes, then escaped as subtly as possible.

What a Production

After 4 sleepless nights, I finally caught up a little today when we slept in and had a lazy breakfast in our room overlooking the Thames river.

Today was our last day in London, so we spent the afternoon in one of my favorite places: Hampton Court. The maze was as fun as I remember, especially when Damon and I began chasing each other around corners and making little movies a la the Blair Witch. We had a beautiful, although chilly, picnic lunch in the gardens which were in all their spring glory blooming with hyacinths, crocouses and tulips.

After the gardens we explored the castle, which is one of my favorites because of the hard work they've done to restore it as faithfully as possible back to the condidtion it would have been in during the reign of King Henry VIII.

They've even gone so far as to add smells and fake food to the kitches, so that as you walk through them you get a feeling of authenticity. Since those kitchens fed a whopping 2,000 people a hot meal every day I'm sure we don't come anywhere close to imagining the chaos, but it definitely makes it more interesting than just seeing the empty chintz-covered rooms you see in most palaces.

Interestingly, Damon really enjoys the elaborate and luxurious (I'd say gaudy) European palaces, while I much prefer seeing ancient ruins (which he calls piles of rocks).

We had dinner in an unimpressive but quick little Italian restaurant in the theater district, then headed over to the Royal Theater at Drury Lane to see "The Producers". It was especially nostalgic for me, because this was one of the theaters I went to with Nana years ago for my 16th birthday trip with her to London.

The music in this prodution was mostly forgettable, but the performances were fabulous and full of energy. The leads were great, especially the woman who played Oola (sp?) who was easily a foot taller than both Bialystock and Bloom. I don't remember the movie being that dirty, or that funny and "Springtime for Hitler" was hysterical. If the Nathan Lane/ Matthew Broderick version ever comes to LA we'll definitely see it again.

Bedtime early tonight because, for reasons I can't quite remember, I've booked us on such an early flight tomorrow morning that we have to get up at 3:30 in the morning. Ugh.

Usability Testing Day 2

The second day of usability testing went smoothly, so now we're back to the vacation phase of the trip. Whew, it's been an exhausting couple of days.

We had dinner tonight at a great little Indian restaurant called Soho Spice with D's aunt and two cousins. No one would ever question whether they're related, clearly those are some of the strongest genes around. His cousins, both teens, clearly idealize America and talk all the time about wanting to move to Florida or California; somewhere warmer & sunnier than their native Essex.

Usability Testing Day 1

I spent all day today in usability testing, the main purpose of this trip to London. The testing went well; it's very interesting to see the cultural differences between the US and the UK. Even the languages are different, sometimes comically so. (In the UK "pants" means "underwear" which made people giggle when they encountered them on our site. They should be called "trousers" here, which sounds silly & formal to US ears.) After 3 sleepless nights we were all exhausted and jet lagged, so by the end of the day I just wanted a stiff drink and a soft bed.

D spent the day with his cousin, Dean, wandering around Oxford Circus, seeing the Natural History Museum and stopping in Harrods. Dean is 18 years old and absolutely charming. He's 6 foot 2, had D's eyes and coloring but he's also got a cockney accent, which is very disconcerting. He can't stand living in London (Essex, actually) and wants very much to move to California or Florida and be a soccer coach.

Dean came out to dinner with D and my coworkers, and actually held his own with the older folks. Sweet kid, clearly very much a member of D's clan: sardonic and handsome, with a fondness for profanity.

After cocktails in the elegant lobby bar of the Swissotel, we had dinner at Thai Square, a beautiful old-fashioned restaurant just off of Trafalgar Sqaure. The papaya salad was divine, and our other dishes were also good. Probably our second best meal here.

Bath & the London Eye

It's very late so this posting will be brief.

We were up early this morning to switch hotels & then catch the train out to Bath. Unfortunately, our train got delayed en route by almost an hour, so everything's a little later than we had hoped today.

Bath was every bit as beautiful as I remembered & D says it' s his favorite thing so far. After exploring the ruins at a leisurely pace (D took some wonderful photos) we had a very proper lunch in the Pump Room.

Bath is full of street performers, including two fire jugglers dressed only in leopard print thongs who mooned me (to the delight of the crowd) when they caught sight of me taking their picture through the window of the Pump Room restaurant. I thought it was alright for a tourist restaurant, but D's assessment was "Now I understand what people mean about English food".

We spent the afternoon strolling around the town of Bath, and picked up some delicious peach brandy from an extraordinary little liquor store where all of the liquor was on tap & you picked out a bottle and filled it yourself.The train home was absolutely mobbed, so we upgraded to First Class and I got a much-needed nap on the way home.

Back in London, we headed over to the London Eye which certainly had a pretty view but we both thought was very overpriced at 15 pounds per person. We had a quick but yummy dinner at Wagamama (which reminded me of an English version of our favorite Noodle Planet) then checked into the Swissotel. After a short tussle because our phone wasn't working we've been moved into a room with a beautiful view of the Thames.

It's 11pm now & I have to be up at 6am tomorrow to head over to see the first of the UK usability tests, so I'm signing off.

Easter Sunday

D. and I woke up early this morning so that we could go to Easter Sunday mass at Westminster Cathedral before we started our tourist activities. The Royal Horse Guards Hotel is beautiful but the beds are saggy & lumpy so neither of us slept very well. The uncomfortable beds and the unhelpful concierge are disappointing drawbacks to an otherwise very nice hotel.

It’s still blustery and cold but at least not raining like it was yesterday, so we actually walked from our hotels over to the Cathedral. The walk was considerably longer than expected because the concierge (despite repeated corrections by me) sent us to Westminster Abbey instead of Westminster Cathedral. We figured it out and made our way to the cathedral, but unfortunately he’d also gotten the mass times wrong, so we arrived halfway through one mass and an hour and a half before the next. Arg. Nonetheless the Cathedral was beautiful and being there for Easter mass was a treat for me (poor Jewish/atheist D. just looked like he didn’t know what to do with himself, but he was a good sport about the whole thing). We stayed through the end of one mass and then for morning prayers, which was quite different from anything I’ve seen in the States, very old-fashioned and formal.

After Easter services, we walked back to the hotel (picking up a few souvenir scarves & candles along the way) and stopped at the Horse Guards and 10 Downing Street. The guards were impressively decorated but surprisingly young-looking; D. commented that they didn’t look more than about 19.

The horses were also beautifully harnessed and impressively quiet and still despite dozens of tourists petting them, taking pictures and milling about under their feet.

Lunch was brief but surprisingly good. On a recommendation from the thus-far useless concierge we ate at the Sherlock Holmes pub, right around the corner from the hotel. D's ubiquitous fish & chips were fantastic, and I had some sort of vegetarian version of sausages & Yorkshire pudding in mushroom gravy that was yummy and satisfying comfort food.

Next we hopped on the tube and headed over for an afternoon at the Tate Modern, after hearing rave reviews from many of our friends. An installation by Rececca Whiteread (?) consisting of piles of translucent white corrugated boxes filled the first floor atrium of the museum. The piles reminded me of great stacks of yet-to-be-wrapped Christmas presents (like something out of The Polar Express), while D saw mountains of sugar cubes.

We spent the next couple hours absorbing the amazing assortment of works by modern giants from Picasso to Miro, from Dali to Pollack, from Rothko to Moore. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an amazing or extensive collection of modern art before. By 4pm we were exhausted so we hopped a tube and headed up the river intending to catch a river cruise back down to Westminster, but the rain returned so we headed back to the hotel for high tea & a nap instead.

The rain has cleared and, although the sky is still mostly slate gray, from my armchair next to our little balcony I can see over the rooftops to a bit of sun softly warming the edges of the cold clouds in glowing pinks and warm golds. Looking at the blackbirds roosting in the marble scrolls and gargoyles of the sooty bell tower across the silent street I can almost imagine what Westminster must have looked like hundreds of years ago, when it was as new as the London Eye.

Happy Easter!

Off to a great start

After an ominous hour delay in our flight’s departure Friday night, things have been wonderful. The coach section of the plane was oversold, so they bumped us up to first class! Not the exclusive area with the cool seats that turn into beds, but we still had very large luxurious fully reclining seats with, footrests and litttle personal televisions.

They served us champagne before takeoff, then a wonderful dinner once we were in the air: warm nuts, green salad, scallop appetizer, then fish in beurre blanc for me and BBQ chicken for D. After dinner they came around with a dessert cart; D had a fruit & cheese plate while I had a choclate sundae with raspberry sauce and we shared a glass of port. They also gave us all little “spa kits” complete with eyeshades, slippers and toiletries to get ready for a sound nights sleep. We took a sleeping pill and managed to catch a few hours before we landed.

We also made friends with a woman, Piper, in the seat next to us. What a small world: she lives about 5 blocks from Shopzilla, and her father just finished building a dreamy new modern house about a mile from Shopzilla, which I walk past & admire on my way to work everyday.

We arrived in Heathrow more than an hour late, so by the time we made it to the hotel it was pretty much time for dinner. The hotel is very nice, although we weren’t able to get a room with a river view without paying a big “upgrade” charge. True to their word (and unusual in my experience with European hotels) they have us a lovely room with two twin beds, so that D’s tossing & turning won’t keep me up all night.

After cleaning up at the hotel, we headed over to Verraswamy for dinner, on the advice of my friend Helen. What an amazing restaurant! Located near Picadilly circus it’s housed in a funky upstairs space overlooking regent street. The décor is modern-sexy-Indian, really stunning. But the best part of the experience, happily, was the food.

We started with a wonderful avocado-mango-dragon fruit salad with a tangy citrus dressing that was by far one of the best salads I’ve had in a long time. We then had some sort of mysterious green vegetable kabob, but the green vegetables were mashed into a sort of vegetable croquette. The smoky, nutty flavor reminded us of sausage more than anything else and was wonderful with the sweet and spicy dipping sauce they served with it. For entrees, D had a lamb and rice dish that looked almost like Indian paella; I had vegetable korma in a piquant green cilantro sauce. Fabulous all around.

Good Friday

Leaving tonight at 8:35pm and all is in chaos. My head is so full that thoughts fall out of my brain 30 seconds after they go in. I'm frantically trying to wrap up work. Having 4 different teams reporting to me means that everyone needs to talk to me before I leave.

On the bright side, though, my team kicked fuzzy bunny tail today in my company's ridiculous annual Easter egg hunt . I sneakily created an alliance with two other teams and we managed to outsmart our 200-odd competitors and rescue poor kidnapped Peter Rabbit from a dastardly bunny fate. Our insane CFO comes up with delightfully byzantine new rules for the Hunt every year; this year involved being escorted to Bunny Jail by the Rabbit Maffia for the slightest infraction of any rule. We found Peter Rabbit stashed under the desk in our President's office, blindfolded, shackled, and manacled with his mouth covered with a ball gag & duck tape. Really, I haven't lost my marbles, this is what constitutes work in LA.

Anyway, we're off to the airport! Thanks to D, we've got our spiffy new international cell phone all set up. We can be reached at 011 44 7726 723 455 (which seems like an absurd amount of numbers, but D assures me that's correct), just keep in mind the huge time difference.

Next posting from the other side of the pond!

Down to the wire

We're in the final stages of planning for the UK trip. It's going to be a mix of business (for me) & pleasure, and hopefully even the business part will be fun. We still need to book our flights between London and Dublin, and sew up a few reservations for plays, etc. The flights between the various different EU companies are ridiculously cheap - if I lived in Europe I think I'd be taking little trips to a different country every weekend!

We will be in London April 15-21, and then in Ireland April 21-23, returning to LA on the 24th. Saturday - Monday we will be staying at the Royal Horseguards Hotel (thanks for the recommendation, Aunk MK!) , then Tuesday - Thursday we'll be at Swissotel the Howard in Embankment. On Friday morning we fly to Dublin, where we will be staying at the Conrad Hilton.

D. gave me a bit of a scare yesterday; he called me at work and said "How much of a disaster would it be if I couldn't go on the UK trip, or had to change the dates?" Aiee! Unfortuantely, one of his many meetings last week got cancelled when the entire studio got evacuated because of a bomb threat or something. The development executive's next available appointment was...of course...when we'll be on the trip! I think he's going to work it out & just see them the following week, but it's very stressful for him. This company is the one that's actually interested in buying his screenplay, and he doesn't want to give them extra time to come up with reasons to not buy it! Cross your fingers for him!

West Side (of LA) stories

Hi family & friends. I'm starting a blog for D (who will never write a letter, much less a blog) and me, to keep you all in the loop with our busy lives. Check back for postings & photos, especially of our upcoming trip to London & Ireland!