Oct 9th, 2009 Posted in Itinerary, Tamara Georgick | 6 comments »
I picked London, so Tamara Georgick searched in the usual places trying to find the best deals. Iceland Air consistently offered some of the more competitive fares for travel between Seattle and London with the fewest stopovers. Iceland Air? Never heard of them either? Apparently they’ve only been serving Seattle-Tacoma since July ’09 (a total of seven North American cities, some only seasonally?). All flights from Seattle go through the capital of Reykjavik, with connections continuing on to 19 European countries. There’s a big push for tourism dollars in Iceland, and the Airline made it really easy to extend what would have been a typical one and a half hour layover at the airport into a 3 night stay in Reykjavik. I never expected to travel to Iceland. I had other must see destinations higher on the list, but I’m totally looking forward to visiting this island. What an interesting and unexpected opportunity! Gateway to the center of the earth here we come!
Also available through Iceland Air’s online advanced booking engine are multi-city itineraries, allowing you to basically string together several one way tickets to create your own custom round trip ticket. Our return flight actually leaves out of Amsterdam, rather than London (with a transfer in Reykjavik and a layover of about 90 minutes). The trick is to make sure you travel on the cheaper dates or it won’t seem like much of a deal at all. Actually that’s why our trip ended up being two weeks long, instead of the ten days or even the one week we were originally planning. Traveling on shorter dates with less time in each city, or even skipping a city altogether, priced out a lot higher. It became a wash with the higher price of longer hotel stays, so why not?! The plan for getting from London to Amsterdam is Rail and Sail. After 6 nights in London, we hop a train from London to the port of Harwich, then take the overnight sleeper ferry (a berth with a view) across the English Channel into The Netherlands. Then its another train from the Hook of Holland port into Amsterdam, where we’ll spend 3 more nights before heading back home. Woo hooh, sounds like a fun and fabulous trip to me!
To recap:
Depart Seattle – Saturday, October 17, 1 overnight on the plane
Arrive Reykjavik – Sunday, October 18, stay 3 nights (10/18-10/20)
Depart Reykjavik – Wednesday, October 21 & arrive in London the same eveing
6 nights in London (10/21-10/26)
Depart London – Tuesday, October 27, 1 overnight on the ferry
Arrive Amsterdam – Wednesday, October 28, stay 3 nights (10/28-10/30)
Depart Amsterdam – Saturday, October 31 & arrive back home the same day (due to the time difference)
Tags: Ferry, Flights, Map, Route, Tamara Georgick
Oct 15th, 2009 Posted in Itinerary, Tamara Georgick | 2 comments »
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The Air
Our first night’s accommodations will be our plane seats. They actually don’t look too bad in the picture. Apparently the airline is in the process of installing, throughout their entire passenger fleet, these new, leather upholstered seats with inflight entertainment system, and “maximum width of seats for maximum comfort” (whatever that means). Our cheap seats will have 32 inches of leg room, plenty for me or any of my mother’s kin, everybody else might be out of luck, though. You know, I can stand completely upright on a plane in a window seat and still clear the luggage compartment overhead without needing to duck down. I suspect that all of these pictures of our sleeping spaces, be it plane seat, hotel room, or ferry cabin, apply to the first, business, deluxe, or luxury class models, and not the economy versions that we’ll actually be staying in, therefore, actual size is smaller than depicted. We’ll inquire about upgrading when we check in. It would be worth it if we could snap up better seats for a modest additional fee. Sitting for 7.5 hours is never any fun, additional comforts would be welcome, plus its just plain fun to be offered complementary drinks, an endless supply of peanuts, and real utensils. Yes, another steaming face towel please. |
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Reykjavik
Iceland Air uses WWTE, the World Wide Travel Exchange for their hotel booking engine. Its not connected to their flight reservation system so you have to book those two parts of the trip separately. Not a big deal. You needn’t even go through Iceland Air if you wish, but their site does offer comparable prices to Expedia, Travelcity, Hotels.com, Oribtz, etc. Really they all seem to be within a few pennies of one another, almost as though they were all drilling down into the same database. So both Tamara Georgick and I would browse through the listings on the Iceland Air site. I filtered my searches for a minimum of three out of 5 stars, free internet access and breakfast included (though the last condition not always successfully). The first hotel in Reykjavik (took me forever to remember how to spell that city’s name, but now I’ve got it down cold!) that looked good to Tamara Georgick was the Hotel Bjork. I favored it simply for the name itself. The only word of Icelandic I know is that one, courtesy of that odd singer with self same moniker. It apparently means willow or some such. I think it might be slightly further from the central shopping core, but its a trade-off for being closer to the shore, with views of the water and surrounding landscape. The building exterior is pretty nondescript, but breakfast and broadband internet is complementary. It received a 97% recommendation rating from the Iceland Air site and a 95% recommendation from the TripAdvisor site. |
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London
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| While in London, we’ll be staying at the Best Western The Cromwell. I know, I know, where goeth the British cultural immersion if we’re staying at an American chain hotel? Well, some of our other choices weren’t available for the entire length of our stay, but I think this place will work out fine. The hotel is actually housed in a 19th century Victorian building, which only quite recently underwent extensive renovations, so its very modern. It sounds like it offers the best of both worlds. It has free in room Wi-Fi, breakfast available, but not included in the price, and it received good reviews from both the TripAdvisor and Iceland Air travel sites (with recommendation rates of 84% and 78% respectively). But really, the best thing about it is its location. The Gloucester Road underground station is just across the street (central, district and picadilly lines, baby!). And this is close to where I used to live. Gloucester Road was my tube stop, well, at least it was when it wasn’t otherwise completely closed for a massive renovation project, in which case I would use the South Kensington stop, or on one or two occasions the Earl’s Court stop. But really whenever I would use that one, invariably someone would start talking about roasting and rotating me over an open flame pit, which was unnerving, coming from my smiling, suddenly toothy american friends, so I had to stop going around there. South Kensington was a much better stop anyway, being on both the green and yellow lines, whereas Earl’s Court was only on the green line. But Gloucester Road, “take a picture here, take a souvenir…” This is where my friend Sheryl was a shop girl, the fast food joint where I’d sit with my friend Heidi and drink chocolate milkshakes, the building where we all took our classes is nearby. My first Indian restaurant is down the road a bit. All hereabouts. |
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Amsterdam
I threatened Tamara Georgick with another Best Western Hotel stay in Amsterdam, but instead we are staying at Die Port van Cleve. It is located in the original Heineken brewery building. It looks georgous, outside and in, but the reviews are very mixed. Only 53% recommended it on TripAdvisor, though 78% gave it a thumbs up on the Iceland Air site. One of the negative reviews complained of mice. Tamara Georgick’s counter to that is where there is mice there is surely cheese, so that’s where we are headed. By the way, since it would simplify things immensely, if you want a souvenir from this vacation, know now that it will be cheese. This hotel has free internet access, and although breakfast is not included it is available and looks like a nice spread.
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Tags: Ferry, Hotel, Plane, Tamara Georgick
Oct 17th, 2009 Posted in Iceland, Itinerary, Tamara Georgick | 4 comments »
| Golden Circle Tour – This is a 8-10 hour minivan/super jeep (?) tour across western Iceland where we’ll get a chance to admire glaciers, geysers, hot springs, waterfalls, craters, etc. It sounds absolutely amazing. We pre-purchased this tour, which is good planning, because we have a small window of opportunity and when Tamara Georgick started emailing the agency, they were already completely booked one of the three days we’d be there. |
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Blue Lagoon, an expensive spa that is fed (carefully reading between the lines) from the wastewater of the nearby geothermal power plant). |
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Everything I’ve read insists that Icelanders have “very strict” hygiene requirements for communal bathing. Here are some directions before entering the spas, pools and hot springs. I’ve read and reread this very carefully in Icelandic several times now and I still don’t know what’s going on. |
| Northern Lights tour, we have to wait until 5pm of the same day to find out if this is happening, its not a sure occurrence, so the tour agency makes the call the evening of. |
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Tags: Iceland, Tamara Georgick
Oct 18th, 2009 Posted in Activities, Iceland, Tamara Georgick | 2 comments »
“Most people like dried fish, although many don’t like the way its smells, but don’t let that stop you!”
from the Reykjavik Visitors Guide
Made it in fine, though the flight was turbulenty. No plane seat upgrades for us, you had to pay the full difference in price, which would have been over a thousand dollars each, ha! Seats weren’t all that comfortable, but the plane wasn’t completely filled so we lucked out by both being able to move into aisle seats across from one another with the middle seats unoccupied. Should have done a little more research into Reykjavik travel beforehand. We just hopped a taxi from the airport to the hotel because it was only a 30 mile drive, how expensive could it be? Well the answer, it turns out, is super, freaking expensive. Don’t do it. Catch the FlyBus instead, it’ll cost 1/3 that of the taxi ride and they’ll drop you off at your hotel (along with the other passengers, so it might take a little longer, but at huge savings). We arrived too early to the hotel for our room to be ready yet (wasn’t even 8am), so we wandered over to the free buffet breakfast, which was simple but delicious (breads, one type of cheese, two types of sliced meat, boiled eggs, cereal, milk, butter, coffee, orange juice). The hotel staff was very accommodating and put a rush on our room availability so that we were able to have an early check in (9:30am). These aren’t swanky rooms, but they are perfectly serviceable (think Ikea furniture). The thing is though, seriously I think we are in the absolute best room they have (out of 55) its a triple room (three single beds) on the corner of the top floor. It is totally spacious by European standards and and has the best view, with two full banks of windows. We are very happy with it. Fell asleep for 6 hours (by that time it was 3am Seattle time). Upon waking, walked 12 blocks to the downtown area, window shopped, and then had a very nice seafood dinner (local lobster with homemade pasta for Ev, local rockfish with risotto for Tamara Georgick). Time for another nap.
Tags: Hotel Bjork, Reykjavik, Tamara Georgick
Oct 19th, 2009 Posted in Activities, Iceland, Tamara Georgick | no comment »
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Not too much accomplished today. Went out to the Blue Lagoon, which consumed about half a day, an hour both to and from the spa (including picking up and/or dropping off several others at their hotels) and then a couple hours at the spa itself, mostly just hanging out in the giant pool, jumping into the steam room, self applying the strangely white, exfoliating silica mud mask, etc. The pool was never deeper than about 4 feet, so I eventually took off my child flotation devices. I enjoyed the minivan ride, more opportunity to see city neighborhoods and the local environs. As soon as you leave the metro area, the surrounding land quickly becomes very uninhabited. The Island itself is only about the size of Kentucky, with a totally population of 320,000, two thirds of which are found within the greater Reykjavik area. This is the second day in a row that the Northern Lights tour was a no go. I guess we’re still a little early in the season, or there’s too much cloud cover? Not sure what the factors are. Still suffering from a bit of jet lag. After dinner I promptly fell asleep. Going to have a long day tomorrow, with the Golden Circle tour, so not a bad thing that I catch up on sleep whenever I can. Anticipating this to be the highlight of the Iceland trip.
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| The lifeguard at the Blue Lagoon was interesting. Not the fellow himself necessarily, though he seemed perfectly fine, but the job. Some things are totally the same. Life guard: good looking, fit, wearing sun glasses, and, of course, thermal outer gear for the frosty air. Tamara Georgick enjoyed striking up a conversation with him. Are you a life guard? “I am.” Do you ever have to jump in? “Yes, sometimes, but not very often.” Do you take off your winter jacket first? “No, no I just jump in.”
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Tags: Blue Lagoon, Tamara Georgick
Oct 20th, 2009 Posted in Activities, Iceland, Tamara Georgick | 7 comments »
Geothermal Power Plants, Waterfalls, Hot Springs, Glaciers and Geysers, oh my!
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Starting from above and moving clockwise –
Our tour bus, the name made us chuckle: Salty Tour
Typical landscape, mountains aren’t that high, maybe 3000ft, but feel close and every where you look there are examples of recent (relatively speaking in terms of how old the earth is) geologic activity.
At the Nesjavellir Geothermal Plant Visitor’s Center, Tamara Georgick pretending to give a lecture on geothermal energy, and thoroughly confusing two British tourists.
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| On the left is Geysir, named after the Icelandic word meaning to erupt, and, you guessed it, from which the English word geyser derives. Written accounts of it date back to 1294. It’s sleepy and doesn’t erupt much more than once a day, a couple of yards away is the Strokkur geyser which is constantly in action. There were hot pools and geysers and steam escaping from fissures all over this place and nothing was tightly cordoned off, you could easily have stuck a hand in hot boiling water if you so desired. The hot pool below, was very cool, hopefully you can make out the darkening crevasse under the water, which, I’m almost certain, reaches straight down to the center of the earth.
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Ev with impressive Viking chainsaw art.
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Tamara Georgick next to sculpture depicting the Icelandic sport of Glima.
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| Gullfoss – a double decker waterwall. It was spectacular! And one of two falls we saw today. |
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Tags: Geysir, Gullfoss, Strokkur, Tamara Georgick
Oct 21st, 2009 Posted in Itinerary, London, Tamara Georgick | 2 comments »
Woo hoo, Ev and Tamara Georgick made it into London this evening. Since today was basically a travel day, I don’t have much in the way of activities to share, made it to a pub near the Hotel, their kitchen was already closed, so just a little sip. Here’s a list of our desired activities, in no particular order, below. Alas, we were never able to take a Northern Lights tour in Reykjavik, unlikely we’ll get to everything here in London either, but we’ll try.
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 Haircut for Ev
Cheese shopping
Natural History Museum
Victoria & Albert Museum
Tate British
Tate Modern
Thames cruise (short one between the Tates)
National Gallery
British Museum
Tower of London
St. Paul’s Cathedral (only outside at night)
Pubs and pub fare – always an option
Afternoon Tea – disappointing, must try again
Dr. Martens shoe shopping
Indian Food (but not Chicken Tikka Masala)
Vinopolis (horrid)
Westminster (bussed around it at night only)
-Open air street market shopping (no time)
– Stonehenge (not enough time)
London Eye
Jack the Ripper walking tour
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Tags: London, Tamara Georgick
Oct 22nd, 2009 Posted in Activities, London, Tamara Georgick | 9 comments »
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Went to the Tower of London today.
Sometimes signage is the best thing about a place. >>>>>
Beheading will be to your right. This sign even includes the universal symbol for chopping off of the head so that it can be easily understood by all.
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Hey, is there anyone lurking out there, reading but not saying hullo? I noticed there were no comments for Iceland-Day 2 and Agenda-London, Ev needing a little positive reinforcement here. Hello?
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The White Tower sort of in the middle of the grounds.
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Started the day off with coffee from Starbucks, this will probably be our morning ritual. Our hotel is all that we hoped for and a little more than we expected: location is excellent, the closest tube stop is just at the end of the block, the room is bigger than we were planning on (certainly larger than neighboring rooms), the bathroom is modern and new, our room doesn’t face the main thoroughfare, but instead the two small windows look out over the green space in the center of this block of buildings. Oh, but the lift only goes up to the fourth floor and we are on the fifth.
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From the tower walls you get a great view of this part of London, including the Tower Bridge…
and the largest Faberge Egg? in the world. >>>>
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| Both Tamara Georgick and I made new friends. |
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| The Tower of London was one of the main attractions I never actually visited back when I lived here. So everything was new to me, interesting and cool schmool. Despite viewing some absolutely amazing pieces from the Crown Jewels collection, the only thing to elicit a true gasp of awe from Tamara Georgick, was the Golden Wine Cistern, aka the Grand Punch Bowl, which is about “the size of a washtub”. |
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| After several hours of looking at jewels, walking the towers, walls and battlements, taking pictures and learning about monarchy related murders we hopped it over to Covent Garden to go shoe shopping. Ev bought some tall green Dr. Martens and Tamara Georgick picked up a couple of pairs of extremely well made shoes from Germany. |
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Before heading back to our hotel we stopped for a bite to eat at a pub called The Sussex (in honor of Murphy, the goofy, short Sussex Spaniel we know). Ev had fish and chips and a cider, Tamara Georgick had the meat pie of the day with mash and a bitter. The Brits, as a whole, are so much friendlier than the Icelanders, who seemed mostly sober and stern, and who caused Ev to stop smiling at strangers altogether for fear of further harsh rejection.
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Tags: shopping, Tamara Georgick, The Sussex, Tower of London
Oct 23rd, 2009 Posted in Activities, London, Tamara Georgick | one comment »
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| Wow, I can’t believe it’s only the second full day in London. This vacation has been going on forever. Ha! Having a great time. Today was the British Museum and, unexpectedly, the National Gallery. Did several hours of the museum then took a break to have afternoon tea at the restaurant on the top floor underneath the dome. The cream was fabulous, the tea wonderful, the sandwiches not so much, and the service horrible. All the wait staff were strapping, young lads from various countries across the European continent with nice healthy egos, and not so keen service skills. When they brought the tableware over, Tamara Georgick noticed that one of the cups was dirty, so she asked the waiter if he could replace it. Instead of just agreeing immediately no questions asked, he actually demanded to know why. After that, they pretty much ignored us, no glasses of water, no hot water refills, no would you like another glass of champagne inquiries, nada, and it certainly wasn’t because they were busy. I was starting to get a little demoralized by the poor service, who wants to be disregarded like that, but was considerably cheered up when Tamara Georgick started yelling at them. We spent several more hours tromping through the museum before they kicked us out for the night. Hadn’t planned on it, but I noticed buses going by on Shaftesbury Avenue headed towards Trafalgar Square, so we just hopped on the next one. We have week long travel cards, so all local public transport is already paid for, might as well take advantage of it. Saw Nelson’s Column in the waning light and all that fantastic architecture surrounding the city square. Noticed that the National Gallery was open late, until 8pm, so in we went. Had to be kicked out of there as well. Thought it would be fun to walk down Whitehall towards Westminster at night, all lit up, so that’s what we did. Needed to stop and refortify first, so we walked into a pub called the Old Shades. Had some tasty mini pies and ale, and were on our way again. Time to rest. |
  
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| No, no – this is all wrong, the hat is too small, or maybe our heads too big, must photoshop it. Stay tuned. |
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Tags: Afternoon Tea, British Museum, National Gallery, Tamara Georgick
Oct 25th, 2009 Posted in Activities, London, Tamara Georgick | 3 comments »
| If I see another work of art, I’m going to go flippin’ mad. That was my attempt at sounding British. Earlier we overheard an English woman complain about the temperature in the underground station by saying “I’m flippin’ owt!” (translation: “I am flipping hot.”) So now we insert “flippin'” whenever we need emphasis. Its just one of many small things we’ve incorporated into our daily routine in an effort to pass off as English. I think it might be working. The first night we were in London, our travel day, we went into a pub and within 15 seconds a fellow from Tunisia starting hitting on Tamara Georgick. One of the first things he asked her was if she was Finnish. There was something about her her height, and more particularly, her below shoulder length hair and bangs down to her eyes that must have made him think so. And he really, really liked her hair, coming close several times to touching it. Anyways, ever since we starting speaking british, nothing like that has come close to happening again. Where was I? Oh yes, if I see another work of art, I’m going to go flippin’ mad. Went to the Tate Britain and the Tate Modern galleries. Started out the day with brunch at the English version of Denny’s. Had some tasty meat pies again. Tamara Georgick also ordered the salad bar, but returned from it mumbling repeatedly about “no flippin’ salad in the salad bar”. |
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| The Tate used to be just one big monolith, but its now scattered across several buildings in different parts of the city. The two main facilities, Tate Britain and Tate Modern are about 3 miles apart along the banks across the Thames river from one another. However, there’s a ferry running between the two that we caught, so we got a short Thames River boat ride thrown in. The Tate Modern is housed in a former power station building, so it has a very industrial feel to it and some really fantastic views (St. Paul’s Cathedral, Millenium Bridge). Also its right next to the site of original Globe theatre (there’s a reconstruction of it called Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.) |
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<<<< At the Tate Modern
ran across some furries.
Went to a Pop Art exhibit with a bunny in it. >>>>
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| After the Tate Modern we walked to Vinopolis, which is self-described as “London’s Wine and Spirit Tasting Destination”. Hey, that sounds good. Well if its one thing I’ve learned from Tamara Georgick, its how to complain about bad wine and poor presentation. To wit, said Ev: “This wine is too flippin’ warm!” “You do not ply patrons with drink opportunities and then turn them loose down stairs where they have to go up and down over a dozen steps!” “There is no such thing as premium wine from Bulgaria!” Anyway, an extremely poor showing of wine tasting. Best thing about it was the opportunity it afforded of taking Tamara Georgick’s picture fleeing like a bat out of hell from there. |
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Walked across the Millenium Bridge up to Saint Paul’s Cathedral, took some pictures, then headed to the next underground station where I came across more interesting signage. This one looked particularly promising. >>>>
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| Alas, it only led to the sign below.
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| Finished off the night with some Indian Food at the Star of India which was kitty-corner from the flat I used to live in. Here it is, 159-161 Old Brompton Road. It’s one of those windows (but not the fancy ones!). |
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Tags: Star of India, Tamara Georgick, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Vinopolis
Oct 26th, 2009 Posted in Activities, London, Tamara Georgick | 5 comments »
| If I see another housed cultural/historical artifact I’m going to go flippin’ mad. Went to the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Natural History Museum today, but first went to Harrods. All three are in the same Borough as our Hotel so none are too far away. |
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| We didn’t realize that daylight savings ended across most of Europe Sunday so we were stuck waiting, along with many other scores of tourists, for Harrod’s to leisurely open their doors at noon. We mostly hung around the food halls, looking at various snacks beautifully displayed. We noticed there was Afternoon Tea offered at one of the various bistros inside and thought we’d give it a shot. It was fabulous. The service was fantastic, both friendly and efficient and the snacks were very tasty. It was a complete delight. |
| We noticed that Harrods had some Chanterelle mushrooms from France for sale. This is the variety that we all go out and hunt for every year. If I’m doing my math correctly, it prices out to about $20/lb. Amazingly expensive, especially when these are the worst looking examples I’ve ever seen for sale in a store. You can see them (sort of) in the lower right hand side of the mushroom tray reflected in the mirror above the sign. |
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| Finished the long day, after dropping off bags back at the hotel and resting for a bit, by going underground again and hopping off at Oxford Circus in order to head into Chinatown. We randomly picked a small Malaysian restaurant to eat at. First time I ever remembering trying cuisine from there. Had some of the best Naan-like bread ever (roti canai ?). Apparently there’s lots of Malaysian food in Amsterdam, so looking forward to that. |
Tags: Afternoon Tea, Harrods, Malaysian Food, Natural History Musuem, Tamara Georgick, Victoria & Albert Musuem
Oct 29th, 2009 Posted in Activities, London, Tamara Georgick | 4 comments »
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| In order to keep from going flippin’ mad, this day we avoided any and all museums and instead went to the London Zoo. Another place I’d never been when I lived here. It was actually terrific. Saw several variety of wild ducks I’ve raised before, but also several I’ve never seen in person [here’s the zoo’s full duck inventory: Plumed Whistling Duck, White-faced Whistling Duck, Mandarin Duck, Madagascar Teal, Baikal Teal, Hottentot Teal, White-winged Wood Duck, Australian Wood Duck, Marbled Teal, Old World Comb Duck, Radjah Shelduck]. Saw a Komodo dragon up close (odd creature), cute pygmy hippos (only 400-600 pounds or so), a drove of bearded pigs, but best of all were the lions. |
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| A mom, dad and two cubs (one boy and one girl) in the largest outdoor, best feline enclosure I’ve ever seen. We were able to watch one of the cubs trying to entice the lioness into playing, which she obliged by wacking him around a bit with her big paw. When the cub decided it had had enough and tried to get away the lioness tripped it and pounced. Could have watched for hours, but we were kicked out. Reminded me of my own cats playing. |
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Ev in a mini…
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Afterwards walked through Regent’s Park and went shopping successfully for luggage along Marylebone Road (need extra storage to haul all the cheese we’ve been buying!), passed Madame Tussauds along the way. Errand completed we crossed over and started walking down one street where we noticed a tube station sign. That’s when I realized it was Baker Street, wait a minute isn’t that where Sherlock Holmes supposedly lived? Sure enough, the bar we sat down outside of was the Park Plaza Sherlock Holmes. Tamara Georgick finally was able to get a Pims Cup, she heard it’s a very popular british drink so has been trying to order it from every pub we’ve been in and this was the first who was able to make her a traditional one (with all the proper fixings, slices of fruit and a sprig of mint). While relaxing there for a bit I notice the 74 bus go by every few minutes. It happens to be the bus that goes right past our hotel. We finish up at the bar walk a few yards to the bus stop and witin 30 seconds the next 74 shows up, just like clockwork. Plus I get my double decker bus ride through London, which I wanted to do. On the way home it takes us by some big lit thing with some other thing on top of it, all of which I quickly realize is Wellington Arch. This city is crazy. It has so much history. All we had planned for today was Indian Food lunch (yum), the Zoo and luggage acquisition, but because this place is so steeped, we also got in a walk through Regents Park, went past Madame Tussauds, sauntered along Sherlock Holmes’ fictional street, and rode around Wellington Arch, all on accident. Can’t help but trip over stuff here. |
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| Tamara Georgick wanted to go to an old historic pub, one where kings drank mead. I found Ye Olde Mitre. It claims to have been around since 1546, but that happens to include one rebuild in 1772. It doesn’t qualify as the oldest pub in London, because at the time it was in Cambridgeshire. Samuel Johnson supposedly frequented this pub, but that’s apparently no great distinction, as he visited many pubs. The other noteworthy claim, and the main reason we went, was that it has the trunk of a cherry tree, formerly growing within its environs, encased in glass and preserved within its walls, that Queen Elizabeth (Tamara Georgick reminds me to mention that it is Elizabeth I, not the current sitting on the throne Elizabeth) used to maypole dance around. We were sold. |
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Tags: London Zoo, Regents Park, Tamara Georgick, Wellington Arch, Ye Olde Mitre
Nov 7th, 2009 Posted in Activities, London, Tamara Georgick | no comment »
| We leave for Amsterdam tonight, but first we had some last minute, hopefully leisurely, tasks we still wanted to take care of, namely snack procurement, tourist shopping, haircuts. Ev needed some more afternoon tea, biscuits, finger sandwiches, and clotted cream. I know we should have tried someplace new, but I wanted more or less a sure thing. Back to Harrods it was. Tea service was not quite as good, but the flavours still delicious. We also picked up some refreshments (in the shape of savory pies) for the train and ferry tonight. Over a score of different meat pies to choose from. Hmmmm, pie! |
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All we had left to do was buy some non-dairy trinkets and get our hair cut. Whilst in London, I was pretty much the one to plot out our routes. I’ve got the tube down, good to go, but I was always so disoriented popping back up to the street, pretty thoroughly confused, as though someone had just asked me to slice some tomatoes. I decided we’d do Picaddilly circus with the idea of winding our way back in a southwesterly amble. Although it wasn’t planned, this walking path did allow us to:
- Wander all around the iconic Fortnum & Mason (est. 1707). They, by the way, had the nicest Water Closets of any place we visited, fancy cloth towels to dry our hands off with. Tamara Georgick assures me this store is quite famous.
- Walk through a corner of Green Park, stop by Buckingham Palace, (I don’t think the queen was in residence. Tamara Georgick says when she is, they fly a flag stamped with something equivalent to the Walmart smiley face), saw the Victoria Monument right in front of the Palace, we also walked passed the Royal Mews.
And yes we did successfully find some nondairy gifts to purchase (at the begining of the walk) and get our haircuts (at the end of the walk).
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Tags: Buckingham Palace, Fortnum & Mason, haircuts, Harrods, Picadilly Circus, Royal Mews, Tamara Georgick
Nov 26th, 2009 Posted in Itinerary, Tamara Georgick | no comment »
It was a bit of an adventure to get from London to Amsterdam.
Steps taken:
- Taxi from the hotel to the Liverpool train station. So far so good!
- Take a train to the Port at Harwich where our ferry was waiting for us. One train was to take us all the way, but a mudslide over the tracks required us to get off the train at Colchester and immediately…
- Hop a double decker bus. Wish it was light out so we could have seen the countryside, but it was still neat, nonetheless, passing, as we did, through these small towns, rounding their squares and suddenly coming upon an old church, probably centuries old, all lit up, before plunging back into near darkness and the occasional reflection of some unknown critter’s eyes watching us from the fields as we rumbled by in the night. [wooo weeee, how about that for a run on sentence?]
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Tamara Georgick was amazing with the baggage hauling. She continuously, over the next 12+ hours, hauled two 50 pound bags, one in each hand, along with a heavy rucksack on her back, up and down stairs, steps and ramps. She says she was breed to dig holes and carry heavy objects. This biological destiny might help to explain her huge crush on 5 time World’s Strongest Man champion, Mariusz Pudzianowski. The only brief respite came when we got off the bus to head to the ferry, someone left behind a luggage trolley and we were able to pile all our bags on it while looking for an elevator. |
- Ferry over to the Hook of Holland. The boat that took us across the channel was much larger than I was expecting. It was always referred to as a ferry, so I had more in mind our puget sound ferries that transport people and automobiles. The Stena Hollandica was actually a full sized shipping vessel, transporting plenty of freight as well as passengers, cars, trucks and semis. It had several decks fitted out with nice sleeping cabins.
- Once at the port in Holland we had to pass through customs. The agents were a couple of spry, young, near vikings who, in addition to stamping our passports, wanted to see at least one credit card. I don’t ever remember having to do that in my travels before, and since we asked, they explained they wanted to confirm that everyone entering the country had some visible means of support. From here we grabbed the local train that stopped at the port.
- The local train took us closer, but not all the way into Amsterdam so we had to jump off, I forget where, and transfer. Unfortunately, the train we were supposed to catch never comes (service cancelled due to some station issues, flooding? fire?). This necessitated relocating to yet another track. Where we had to catch a train that still only takes us partway to our destination.
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| All of these station and track announcements were spoken solely in dutch, but every person we asked for help with directions or translations was extremely nice and obliging. One janitor, completely unsolicitated, went out of his way to show us where elevators were located. After awhile we had a couple of other English-only speakers trailing all our moves, since we were clearly getting good assistance from the locals. |
- Transfer and connect to the train that will finally bring us into Amsterdam. Once at the central station, we discover we still need to wait an hour for the Tourist Center to open at 11am. We pre-purchased transportation cards and museum entrance passes, and needed to pick them up here. Signs to the tourist office were confusing. Go both left or right.
- Haul our bags and ourselves across the street from the central train station and catch a tram to our hotel, only it doesn’t really go by our hotel and we miss the stop, so we eventually get off.
- Catch another tram going back the way we came, this time we get off close to our hotel. We can’t check in for another two hours, but we finally made it!
It was certainly fun, but it took longer than it needed to. I counted 9 separate transportation legs to this journey. I was pretty exhausted by the time we finally managed to check into our room.
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Various scenes of Amsterdam we saw while riding the Tram past our Hotel
or while we were wandering about waiting for our room to be ready. |
Tags: Amsterdam, Hook of Holland, Port of Harwich, Tamara Georgick
Jul 19th, 2010 Posted in Activities, Amsterdam, Tamara Georgick | no comment »
Eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokul interrupts Ev’s completion of her travel blog no more . . .
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We were armed with an I amsterdam Card which is a great tourist tool. Purchase it for either a 1, 2 or 3 day period for free use of all local public transportation options, free entrance to most of the national museums, a free canal cruise, as well as a variety of other store and restaurant discounts. |
| Our hotel was centrally located, really smack dab in the middle, so we ended up walking to most places, but we had the flexibility of hopping on and off anything we wanted to without having to give it a second thought. The morning we checked in we wandered around the neighborhood. We came across the Anne Frank House which was only three canals/streets away directly east of the hotel. There was a line of people wrapped around the building waiting for their timed entrance into the museum. I started crying. I’ve been there before (with my dad when we traveled around the northern parts of Europe before he dropped me off in London for my freshman year in college); but Tamara Georgick never has. She asked me to describe the rooms, since we weren’t going to have an opportunity to visit it this time around. Honestly, I couldn’t remember many details, it was so long ago, other than such small, narrow spaces and overwhelming sadness. |
See arrow pointing to the circle locating our hotel in the center of the map!
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Lots of old buildings in the immediate vicinity, including Magna Plaza which is now a shopping center, but was originally the central post office, constructed in 1899 (in a neo gothic style). Our hotel, Die Port van Cleve, abuts it just off to the right.
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We were directly across the street from the Dam Square and overlooked the Queen’s Palace and the adjacent New Church where most of the royal coronations, inaugurations and weddings take place. The Palace was covered in scaffolding and closed to visitors while undergoing some major renovation.
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I was exhausted and trying to fight off a cold, so I stayed in to get some much desired rest while Tamara Georgick went back out and did more sight seeing. A good night’s sleep seemed to do the trick and I was definitely re-energized for the last two days of our vacation. The hotel room was a bit odd, sunken with a short, low window, but I think they needed to do that in order for the building to be converted into more rooms and to give each room a window while preserving the original facade of the building. The photos side by side above show our actual hotel room window from both the inside and outside. Nope we didn’t get the rooms with the tall windows and balcony.
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Tags: Dam Square, Hotel Die Port van Cleve, I amsterdam Card, Magna Plaza, New Church, Royal Palace, Tamara Georgick
Jul 19th, 2010 Posted in Activities, Amsterdam, Tamara Georgick | no comment »
Eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokul interrupts Ev’s completion of her travel blog no more . . .
I’m leaving out the numerous times we sat down at cafes in front of squares or besides the canal waters to people watch, sip on beer and snack on cheese, but it did happen. Beyond all that, what we tried to do were museums. No surprise, of course, that there are some fantastic museums in Amsterdam, but we were surprised to discover that a satellite of the Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia – founded by Catherine the Great, one of the oldest and largest collections in the world, etc. etc.) had opened up there earlier in the summer. 
I have been really lucky and have had some great opportunities to travel. I’ve already been to about 30 or so countries and still counting. I was in Russia for about 9 days back in college (thanks Dad!) and have been to the Hermitage Museum. It’s collection is so enormous that only a fraction of it can ever be on display, part of the reason they’ve established satellite museums I’m sure. The Hermitage Amsterdam houses two major travelling Hermitage exhibitions a year. While we were visiting, the inaugural exhibition “At the Russian Court” was on display. 1,800 objects recreating “life at the Russian court during the nineteenth century: a period that spanned the reigns of six tsars, from the little-known Paul I, son of Catherine the Great, to the tragic Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia.” It was an interesting exhibit, but really some of the worst exhibit labeling I’ve ever experienced, not very professional, after awhile it was just plain funny.
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The Rembrandt Museum really exceeded my expectations, it was incredibly interesting. Located in the house he lived in for a decade or so, it afforded some fascinating insight on how he might have lived and worked during a particularly successful period in his life. On top of that the curators have been trying to collect originals as well as contemporary pieces of art, not just his, but ancient greek and roman, etc. that Rembrandt is believed to have kept in this house during the period he lived there. The house seemed incredibly well appointed, with multiple stories and numerous rooms. Even by modern standards it felt luxurious.
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While in Iceland we sampled the seafood (langoustine and redfish) and the lamb, in England the dairy and the savory pies. So what was the local cuisine of the Netherlands that we needed to be sure to try? Everything Tamara Georgick read highly recommended Rijsttafel aka Rice Table. I argue that the Netherlands cannot claim these dishes as their own, since the fare is entirely Malaysian (former dutch colony), but claim it nevertheless they do, having introduced the small plate concept to this cuisine. I forget how we picked the restuaruant Sampurna, but I am so glad we did. It was terrifically good, so many different flavors, spices and curries, all quite tasty! Plus the night was pleasant and we sat outside facing the closed up flower market shops. A very nice evening had by all.
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The blond braids of Tamara Georgick’s Elephant Art cracks me up everytime I see it! These elephants were sprinkled all over the city and were quite eye-catching. Below is what the plaques had to say about them.
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Tags: Elephant Parade, Hermitage Amserdam, Rembrandt House, Rice Table, Rijsttafel, Tamara Georgick
Sep 5th, 2010 Posted in Activities, Amsterdam, Tamara Georgick | no comment »
Eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokul interrupts Ev’s completion of her travel blog no more . . .
We managed to pack a lot of activities into our last full day in Amsterdam.
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Since it was directly across the street from us, we stopped by De Nieuwe Kirk. There must be thousands of centuries old churches scattered across Europe, seen one seen them all, right? Ha, the interior art and architecture remains so interesting, impressive. |
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| We took a fun and interesting Canal cruise in the morning with the Blue Boat Company. A very nice way to see the cityscape. One of the unexpected highlights was that the boat actually went out beyond the canals, into the open water and near the shipping lanes. |
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From where we got on and off the boat it was easy walking distance to the Rijksmuseum, unexpectedly it only took us an hour to go through it, and I mean sure, we saw 50 well known masterpieces, but it still seemed to be strangley lacking. It wasn’t until we were walking away that we noticed and read the sign that said due to renovation, only a small portion of the collection was currently on display. |
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| Not done with museums, we powered on to the Van Gogh Museum, which was a really fascinating collection of his work and correspondence and other pieces, anything connected to him, all very well representated. I didn’t realize that the period during which he created his most recognizable works of art, the style we think of when we think of Van Gogh, only lasted a few short years. |
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| That evening we tried to find the red light district, and strangely enough couldn’t manage to. No exposure to vice for us, we remained innocents. We did stumble across the worse example of municipal trash pick I’d ever seen, or expect to see. A dozen men who seemed drunk singing and chanting and haphazardly throwing filled trash bags through the air. About half of the bags would miss the back of the trash truck and come crashing back down onto the hard street only to rip apart and spill out their contents. They were like pirates on shore leave, I remembered gaping at them open mouthed in horrified fascination. After that it was back to our hotel for us. |
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Tags: De Nieuwe Kirk, Hotel Die Port van Cleve, Rijksmuseum, Tamara Georgick, Van Gogh Museum
Sep 15th, 2010 Posted in Tamara Georgick, Uncategorized | no comment »
Eruption of Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokul interrupts Ev’s completion of her travel blog no more . . .
| Well, Evelyn Lindberg and Tamara Georgick went on this trip almost a year ago. I can’t believe so much time has passed already. It was a splendid vacation, one where you don’t feel the need to take another vacation in order to recover from it. I remember going back to work feeling all refreshed. Iceland was interesting, although it is one of 3 countries still whaling, so that’s no good (Norway and Japan being the other two). Offering the ridiculous rational that the killing of these whales is being done for some scientific purpose, when they are clearly killing them simply to put them on the menu. It’s a very confined country, an island and all (but then so is England) with a really small population. No burning desire to return to do the same things, the experience is limited. I could see going back to Iceland to do one of the longer tours, multi-day or week long excursions, the geography being fascinating. They were proud of their unadulterated viking ponies and the fact that they can still read ancient viking texts as though they were written yesterday. Enough said. |
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London is a fantastic city and I spent a really wonderful period of my fervent youth here so I will always, always be fond of it in a sweet verging on the bittersweet (I’ll add melancholy because those two words always go so well together) way. The foreign singage is always fun. These three were seen around Amsterdam.
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And then we woke up and flew home.
First leaving the coastline of Iceland behind and then returning to the familar shores of the puget sound.
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Tags: Tamara Georgick
