Burlaki [back] on the Hudson

Spent a few days in Chicago on business. The schedule was fairly packed, but I managed to squeeze in an evening with the little brother and his family. Did not manage to find much time for idle city-seeing, although I did try to take different routes between the hotel and the office, as I aways do.

From a point of view of an architecture lover, Chicago must be one of the most impressive American cities. All over the Loop, there are gorgeous examples of a wide variety of architectural styles. The concept of uniformity was seemingly paid no heed whatsoever when Chicago was built up in 19th-20th centuries, so there are literally no two like buildings in any proximity of one another. On a bright, sunny day, even the heart of the city’s concrete jungle is rather pleasing to the eye.

I’ve been to Chicago quite a few times in the past, and yet I never knew that many streets in its Downtown area exist on two levels, with the lower level providing a quicker driving route between various points; much fewer cars use those lower streets. When you walk around Chicago on foot, you may never realize that a wide thoroughfare such as North Michigan Ave is, in fact, an elevated roadway, with the ground-level street directly underneath it. When a taxicab suddenly took me along the lower-level route, I was stunned by the discovery.

I also feel like I should have been familiar with that before.

Having had been a comparatively frequent business traveler prior to the family move to England, I have not been on a business trip for nearly three years. The shaving cream can felt victim to my lack of recent exposure to traveling without checked-in luggage. It was a large container, well above the 100g limit allowed in the carry-on these days. The TSA agent looked at me with barely concealed disdain and my pride took a serious hit for being publicly nailed in an attempt to break the law, however inadvertently, especially as I was unable to conceal my incredulity and duly attracted the attention of everyone behind me in the security check line. It all makes sense, I suppose: Idiotic rules make you feel like an idiot.

On the other hand, I consoled myself, at least I can hope that a truly dangerous object would not escape TSA folks’ scrutiny, seeing how successful they were in preventing various bottles, cans and containers to accompany their hapless owners. My shaving cream joined a pile of at least 50 similar objects…

Chronicles, Travel

The kids will be out of school for two weeks in late March-early April, and we are suddenly faced with a dearth of places to go for a holiday.

The big part of it is undoubtedly our “spoiled” attitude after several years in Europe – we simply do not find many destinations in North America all too exciting. Add to that the upper limit of three hours in the air that we are currently willing to entertain, and our lack of enthusiasm for a beach holiday, and, as one of my friends jokes, “it’s Colonial Williamsburg or stay home”.

Where did we go for a spring school break from London? Cotswolds, Tuscany, Wales, Central Europe. Fairly inexpensive, either by air or by car, comparatively short flights when driving was not an option. Ok, one year the girls went all the way to the US for spring break, but while the flights were of the longish variety, the overall travel expense was still quite minimal…

Back in the US, we can’t come up with an option of a nice place that can sustain our collective interest for longer than a couple of days, be relatively near and comparatively inexpensive to get to and spend time at. Preferably, where we haven’t been to yet. Desirably, warmer than Northeast US. Hopefully, not overrun by hordes of vacationers also taking advantage of school break.

I already admitted – spoiled.

Travel

Monaco famously occupies a very tiny spot on the French Riviera coast, but its topology is such that if you move from one part of it to another on foot, you will be well-exercised from all of the climbs and descents along terraced stairs.

On our visit to the principality, we spent an entire day there with several sightseeing and entertainment targets in mind. Our planning rested on the notion that sights cannot be that far from one another, but after taking into the account time constraints for a couple of sights and the desire to have a dinner at the end of the day in the historic center, we ended up repeatedly shuttling between Monaco Ville, Monte-Carlo and Jardin Exotique area.

At some point towards the end of the day, we decided that we had enough of walking and instead took the bus. This was on the route that we already covered in one direction – a convoluted and lengthy walk over quite a number of slopes and terraces – but we were pretty sure that the bus ride would not take more than a minute or two, with at most a couple of stops.

We got on a completely empty bus and paid the fare to the driver. He gave us back a receipt. We sat down.

Not a hundred meters into the ride, there was the first stop. A man in a suit and a coat got onto the bus, said something to the driver, and stepped towards us.

“Les billets, s’il vous plait” he said, flashing some sort of a badge.

I did not expect anyone to start speaking to me in French at that particular moment, so my reaction must have been that of a complete confusion. The man caught up immediately.

“Your teekets, pleeze.”

I mimed utter relief in response and, after a second of difficulty trying to recall which pocket I had put the damned receipt in, produced said receipt.

The man carefully inspected the piece of paper, nodded with satisfaction, gave it back to me, said “Tres bien. Merci!“, and got out of the bus at the next stop. Which, as it happened, was the last stop and our destination.

I had to produce public transport tickets for inspection on quite a number of occasions in my life, but none of such occasions left a similar imprint on my memory. A completely empty bus, only two stops to ride, no more than a couple of minutes of time on the bus, the tickets bought directly from the driver – and still the inspector did not neglect to show his zeal. Those Monegasque must be really serious about law and order in their little country, I thought to myself.

I haven’t been back to check whether they still do, unfortunately.

Memoirs, Travel

While this is one of those little travel recollections that we frequently like to recount, it is not an “anecdote” in the sense that I associate with the word. It does not have a punchline or a comical outcome. It is simply something we recall with fondness.

On our visit to the Amalfi Coast, we headquartered ourselves in a relatively minor location, as evidenced by its name, Minori1.

We stayed at a great B&B high above town, with sweeping views of the surrounding mountains and the Tyrrhenian Sea that we enjoyed from our private terrace. The food was great, the accommodations perfect – after all, our demands rarely exceed good location plus cleanliness plus running water – and the hospitality of owners unparalleled. Only one person in the family spoke any English, and not very much of that. Our mastery of Italian was very minimal at the time. And yet, we were greeted as if we were long-lost close relatives and the communication barrier quickly evaporated under the torrent of amiability and warmth.

One the last night of our stay we decided to have dinner at the B&B. The meal was prepared by the owner’s sister. Boy, was that a monumental mistake! Not in the direct sense, mind you. Everything we were served was out-of-this-world delicious. The problem was in the amounts of food. We were not used to a six-course dinner where everything is unbelievably tasty… and there is no way to leave something on the plate without risking offending the friendly cook! Who was also the waiter. One appetizer replaced another, then came pasta, then another pasta, then some succulent meat dish… And all we could think of after the third or so course was, How are we going to eat anything else, we are so full!

And then, for dessert, we were offered to sample from a dozen of different brands of limoncello. Mmm… Quite impossible to get seriously drunk, too, with so much food blocking all of the digestive paths…

But this is not the main point of this story.

We asked the owner for restaurant recommendations when we arrived. He pointed us to a place in town that served the best seafood on the coast, according to him. He instructed us to mention to the staff that he sent us there.

We followed his instructions. The restaurant occupied a beautiful stucco building on the corner of the seafront promenade. As a member of the staff greeted us, I managed enough of Italian to explain that we would like a table for two and that Signor Antonio, whose guests we currently were, recommended the place.

The waiter’s already friendly smile stretched as far as his face allowed.

“Antonio! Certo! Him and I, we practically shared a potty when we were kids!”2

We were shown to a small table in an alcove with a view to the promenade and the beach beyond. Quite romantic! Possibly, we would be given the same table even if we were not sent here by our host, but I’d like to think that we were treated like VIPs because of him.

I asked for a wine recommendation. Our waiter summoned another, whose sommelier qualifications probably exceeded those of the first guy only in that the latter spoke a little English. He first tried to explain to us that someone in his family was married to Antonio’s sister’s best friend’s cousin or something, and that he and Antonio were close friends since childhood. Then, he proceeded to point out which of the wines on the menu was the most perfect accompaniment to the meal we were about to have. It turned out to be il vino della casa. Maybe, he did not want to waste some more expensive wine on American tourists; knowing that house wine is often the best value for money in non-touristy European eateries, I’d like to think that he was sincerely helping us avoid overpaying for something we might not enjoy as much.

While we were having our meal, we experienced something that almost never happens at a restaurant in most parts of Europe: Our dinner was interrupted a couple of times by the members of restaurant staff3. First, one waiter or another came to our table to check on us and said something along the lines of him needing to make sure that we’d tell Antonio that his friends know how to look after his guests. Then, at some point, the chef came around to our table, introduced himself, inquired how our meal was, and regaled us with a story about Antonio’s father and himself and a most beautiful girl who ended up either Antonio’s mother or chef’s wife, I didn’t quite get it, with the “losing” guy stoically performing best man duties at the wedding4.

When the time came to order dessert, Natasha picked some torta or other, while I was content not to have anything else. The waiter nonetheless brought us a full bottle of limoncello. As I tried to say that we did not order any, he waved my protest away. A gift, he said. To take home with us. On the house, because we were guests of Antonio.

True to his word, the bill did not include any mention of limoncello. We brought that bottle home to the States with us and it lasted us quite a long time, occasional drinkers that we are.

Neither Natasha nor I remember much about the specific dishes that we had at that restaurant (and we did not yet start the practice of detailing our meals in the travel diaries then). But it remains one of the most memorable restaurant experiences on our travels. Because everybody knew Antonio.

After a day or so, we were pretty sure that among residents, everybody knew everybody in Minori.

—————
1 For those unfamiliar with that area, yes, there is a nearby village called Maiori. As far as I am aware, it is bigger. While still being a minor point of interest, compared to the likes of Sorrento, Positano or Amalfi.

2 I allow that what he said was actually something quite different. But I understood much less Italian then than I do now, and this is all an interpretation of what I think was said, based on such clues as gesticulation and body language, plus individual words that I thought I caught.

3 American travellers frequently complain that once your food is delivered, the waiter seemingly loses all interest in the customer in French or Italian eateries. You often have to make an effort to catch her or his attention when you need something or even when you’re ready to pay and leave. Me, I find that quite all right. Once I start eating, I don’t want to be disturbed by questions about my food and unsolicited offers of help. I want to eat and enjoy conversation with my dining partners in peace. When I need further help, I’ll call for it.

4 See 2 above.

Memoirs, Travel

For our first family trip since coming back to the US, we decided on a pilgrimage to Our Nation’s Capital.

Ok, not exactly. In truth, our old college friends have long settled down in Fairfax County, Virginia, and we’ve made several visits to stay with them over the years. The driving distance from us to DC area is about 20 miles less than that between London and Paris, if anyone needs a proof that it is a fairly simple and obvious weekend trip for us.

Our friends never made it to London in our years there, so we had plenty to catch up on. We tried to do a bit of sightseeing, too, with a visit to the National Mall, a stop at the National Cathedral, and a trip to Potomac’s Great Falls. It occurred to me that every time we come down, we end up with very little sightseeing, since we come primarily to see our friends, and any touristy activities are mostly coincidental. Kimmy especially wanted to explore much more than we could offer this time around, so I guess we need to plan a true “see DC” trip one of these days.

I got warmed up to the prospect of planning a future trip around taking Kimmy to see monuments and museums that I myself have very dated, if at all, familiarity with (we did conclude that most of our DC sightseeing occurred in the space of roughly 24 hours on our very first, Greyhound-enabled trip to Washington in 1993, during which time we managed to see several museums around the National Mall as well as the Capitol, stopped by several monuments including going up to the top of the Washington Monument, and even toured the Pentagon). In the meantime, we had a great reunion and an overall grand time.

More trips needed.
 

Travel

After penning my first entry in this series, I realized that we suffered through too many comical miscommunication situations in non-English-speaking restaurants, from randomly choosing a toast spray in a Parisian café and ending up with honey (which I can’t stand) to trying in vain to find something – anything! – that we could recognize on a German-language-only menu in Mainz (which did not turn out all that bad in the end) to the fairly recent mishap of Babylonian proportions. I am not sure if I’ll recount all of them eventually, but they may dominate the proceedings in this feature. Furthermore, this next story again features mushrooms, if in a slightly different role.

Natasha does not eat cheese or eggs. She obviously uses the latter in her own cooking, but if the food is not prepared by her personally, a whiff of either will send the dish back to where it came from (or make it my responsibility to consume it – which I often do not particularly mind). There is not a good explanation for her aversion, and I long ago just accepted it as one of those weird facts of life.

The important corollary to this is that our restaurant orders have to be vetted, lest they contain those undesirables. And when the waiter communication is in a language other than English, French or Russian, the vetting responsibility is solely mine.

On our very first day in Madrid – our very first day in Spain, as a matter of fact, – after a couple of hours of early-morning exploration of the Old City under brilliant azure skies, we sat down for brunch at some outdoor café on a leafy plaza. There weren’t too many patrons at that time of day; we picked a table in the shade and sat down.

The menu was in Spanish and contained no more than a dozen items, every one of which was denoted by a name (”Madrileño”, “Quixote”, “Diablo”, etc.) followed by a list of ingredients. Most of the items had the same ingredient listed first, which I confidently identified as mushrooms. Natasha wanted to consult the phrasebook, but it was languishing somewhere in our luggage at the hotel. I confidently assured her that I learned enough Spanish ahead of time and knew what I was talking about. I offered her a combination of mushrooms and something that I thought she would like and she accepted. Me, I did not want to have mushrooms, so I ordered one of only three choices that did not have that same ingredient listed – some sort of crepe con queso.

We also asked for bread rolls, which Natasha immediately went after on account of being hungry.

People at nearby tables were getting their food ahead of us, and I noticed that they all seemed to be getting omelets. I did not think I saw the word tortilla anywhere on the menu, so at first I thought that there must have been a separate omelet menu that we did not see.

Then, our food arrived. Mine was a pancake stuffed with cheese and some other ingredients, just as I divined from the menu (after all, French crêpe is used even in the US, and the Spanish word is spelled almost the same).

Natasha’s was an omelet, with all of the stuff that I figured listed for that particular type, but not a mushroom in sight.

That ingredient that appeared on most of the menu choices? Huevos. Eggs! Which also explained all of the omelets at the neighboring tables. Mushrooms in Spanish is setas.

We ended up with two dishes, each of which had something that Natasha did not eat.

I ate both of them. Natasha declined to take a chance on one of the remaining menu entries (which did not have either huevos or queso among its ingredients) and instead demolished all of the bread and asked for more.

We had no less than four tapas stops later that day, which helped her recover. Still, she has not let me forget that blunder to this day. She is not above saying huevos whenever she thinks I am being over-confident. It does not help that the word sounds way too close to an obscenity in Russian.

Memoirs, Travel

When I last tried to solicit questions from my readership, Tamila jokingly suggested that planning a grand Asian trip would occupy my mind for a while. I don’t think we’re ready for any adventure of such kind as yet, but I did put away a simple idea for a post on the heels of that: Enumerate future destinations for our travels.

Just eyeballing the results of this exercise reinforces my long-held belief that for all my pretenses to be a world traveler, I still have much more to see than I have already seen. Actually, zooming out of my nifty world map and controlling for the fact that China is marked as “seen” only on account of Becky and that the vast expanses of Russia, Canada and the US are marked only because the tool colors each country as a whole, that belief becomes self-evident.

Anyhow, in no particular order of preference…

Europe (not counting potential returns to already visited locales):

• Scandinavia and the Baltics
• Russian capitals and the Golden Ring (the former actually visited by Natasha and me, albeit too long ago)
• Portugal
• Adriatic countries of former Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro)
• Greece
• Turkey
• Mediterranean islands (Cyprus, Malta, Sicily, Sardinia)
• parts of West European countries (France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, etc) that we did not manage to fit into our earlier travels
• Israel

Asia:

• China
• Japan
• Indochina: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam
• India
• [less specifically] Nepal, Malaysia, Indonesia

Pacific:

• Australia
• New Zealand
• Hawaii
• Galapagos Islands
• Easter Island

Africa:

• Morocco
• Egypt
• a safari (Tanzania? South Africa?)

South and Latin America:

• Brazil
• Argentina
• Peru
• Costa Rica
• Cuba
• various Caribbean islands
• parts of Mexico beyond Cancun

North America:

• Alaska
• Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Arches, and other natural wonders in Western US
• Pacific Northwest
• French Canada

I am pretty sure this is not an exhaustive list.

A guy can dream, can’t he?

Travel

I’m going to inaugurate a new recurring feature on this blog that I hope will provide a bit of extra amusement for my readers as well as give me an opportunity to talk about things that I love talking about the most – my travel experiences. In this series, I will recount the comical and curious situations that we occasionally found ourselves on our journeys.

Quite a lot of unintended comedy comes as a result of feeble attempts to communicate with natives in their tongue.

When we first went to France, my French was nowhere as it is now. Purposefully studying an audio course or two does not really train the ear for the free-flowing conversation one might have with a native speaker. And French, in my humble opinion, is one of the harder spoken languages to understand, due to its soft sounds and the plethora of monosyllabic words that are easy to confuse with one another or miss altogether… Natasha has always been better than me in the “understanding French” area – I am considerably stronger in speaking and reading departments – but she does not have a habit of intervening in conversations where I might be making a fool of myself (unless she is directly affected)…

One night, for dinner, we picked a rustic auberge in a Loire riverside village. The staff did not speak any English. This was the seventh or eighths day of our trip, and I was pretty sure that I already mastered the process of ordering food in French. I asked for wine, selected appetizers. When I named the main course of my choice, our server, an amiable plump woman in probably her sixties, broke into a pretty quick and lengthy tirade, which sounded to me like “bla-bla-bla champignons bla-bla-bla-bla-bla” with a clear question at the end. Happy that I could discern a word in her speech, I quickly surmised that she was asking me whether I wanted to have a side of mushrooms with my main course. I confidently responded with “Oui, champignons, s’il-vous plait“. She looked at me a bit funny and asked me what surely sounded like “More of them?” I was not at all clear where the conversation landed me by that point, but I still answered affirmatively.

The lady retreated to the kitchen with a mildly amused expression on her face. I started to replay in my head what I thought I heard her say. And it became clear to me that what she was saying was “The dish comes with mushrooms on the side, and you can have this or this or that as another side; what would you like?”

To which I obviously answered that I wanted more mushrooms…

We corrected the misunderstanding when our appetizers arrived. The lady assured me that she was anyway going to bring me potatoes au gratin as my other side. Which worked just fine for me.

We counted that meal as the best on our entire trip. The French country food is unbelievably good!

Memoirs, Travel

You did not think I’d stay put for long after repatriating, did you?

Actually, I did not expect myself that my first travel experience back in America would happen so soon.

My brother and his family never made it to London in the three years that we lived there. I did see them on a business trip to Chicago in 2007 and we crossed paths in New Jersey later that same year. But, Skype/MSN Messenger aside, we have not seen each other for almost two years. And then, he became a father again two months ago.

That was a perfectly good reason to travel to Chicago and see the family and meet its newest member. My parents wanted to go anyway, but weren’t too happy about the cost of air travel. So, when I offered to join them for a driving adventure, the trip was on.

We drove in two stages each way, stopping overnight somewhere in Pennsylvania (on the way back, that somewhere turned out to be Mars – that is, Mars, PA). Beautiful landscapes alternated with less attractive ones, but the vistas were generally pleasant. I officially added Ohio and Indiana to the list of US states that I set foot in (both feet, as it were, at several rest areas – the ones in Ohio are especially impressive). We spent 13 hours covering roughly 800 miles, and then almost 2 hours crawling around Chicago for the last 30 or so. On the way back, a zealous Pennsylvania state trooper pulled me over for ostensibly catching up with the car in front of me in a one-lane road-work zone (I was going 68 in a 40-mile zone while everybody else must have been doing 66), but after chastising me, he wrote me a no-points ticket for a “general speeding” (the fine itself is listed as $25, but there are surcharges and extra fees for another $80).

I met my newest niece, a cute tiny person whom I was more than a little afraid to hold. I have no recollection how small the newborn babies are… My other niece, who just turned five, for quite some time did not want to let me out of her sight… My brother and I went to play a round of 9-hole golf at the neighboring course; we both suck, but he decidedly less so… There was a visit to old friends who live in the area, a children’s party at the community aquatic center, a restaurant celebration of a family member’s birthday… For good measure, I checked into a hotel in downtown Chicago for one night and spent the following morning around the office, on a meet-and-greet mission that gave the trip a small pretense of being a business one.

We did not do any sightseeing – there was no room for that during a whirlwind 72-hour stay. No big deal; I’ve been to Chicago many times and surely will be there again before long. I did enjoy panoramic views of the city from the high floor of our offices in the recently-rechristened Willis Tower.

What about Natasha and the girls, you ask? They had their own adventure, planned well in advance, joining our good friends for a tour of Pennsylvania attractions centered on Amish country. Among their activities were visits to a chicken farm and a dairy farm, a day at the Hershey amusement park and chocolate factory, train and buggy rides, and tons of other fun.

We’d like to think we’ll continue to be actively seeking new journeys…

Travel

Our last European holiday for the foreseeable future was by far the laziest of them all. We came to the place that we knew quite well from the previous year. We spent time alternating between the beach and the pool. We went to a few nearby picturesque locations for brief excursions, but not to a single place that we have not visited before. We dined out a reasonable amount of time, but not daily. The longest drive we took throughout the two weeks on Costa Brava (not counting getting there from Barcelona and back) was, actually, to one of the restaurants which specializes in suckling pig.

We had smashing time! I don’t cope well with the concept of a lazy, do-nothing holiday, but sharing it with friends makes such a vacation enjoyable, my personal desires to wander forth and about notwithstanding. And we had a grand company, meeting up with three families of our old friends from America, hosting a family of our friends from London, as well as hitting it off with a Muscovite family of friends-of-our-friends. Who are now our friends directly as well, we hope.

Great food, good wine, excellent weather, welcoming Mediterranean waters, striking vistas and beguiling little towns were a given. Add to that regular opportunities to engage people whom I like to talk to in discussions of topics that I care to discuss; or to park in a chair on a terrace with a sweeping view of majestic coastline with a good book in my hands… and it turns out, I can handle two weeks of doing-nothingness.

To be honest, Arthur, one of my oldest friends and the person who turned us on to L’Estartit (he and his family spend several weeks there every summer), did suggest a couple of “serious” excursions to interesting destinations during our stay. We declined, for various reasons, and, while I have these little pangs of regrets at having willingly passed opportunities to explore new locales, I don’t think our decision diminished our overall enjoyment in any way. More time for the girls to spend in the water, anyway.

We did spend several hours in Barcelona on our day of departure, but little of that could be called sightseeing. On children’s preferences, we first went to the Aquarium, and then hooked up with our vacationing friends from New Jersey, spending more time in a couple of cafés than walking.

And then, we were sad. It was – no doubt about that! – our very last family trip in Europe for probably years to come. The quantity of European vacationing that we did in the last three years is easily the biggest item in the “loss” column of our relocation ledger.

The return trip home was its usual worst part of the trip. The flight was ok, and the passport control wait was bearable, but the car company mishandled our reservation, nobody waited for us in the arrival hall, and the guy who showed up half an hour later was an obvious infrequent washer. Natasha, who sat in the front passenger seat for the hour-and-a-half ride home, suffered considerably. We used to recommend JustAirports.com to our acquaintances in London, but the last couple of occasions of using them were less than positive, to say the least. We’ll take our business elsewhere. Even if it is for one very last trip to Heathrow…

Travel

And so our last sightseeing trip of the London era is now in the past. It was fantastic and fulfilling, as almost every other of our trips has ever been, and it took us back – or for the first time, for kids, – to two cities that are subject to our warmest affections.

Venice was as magnificent as we recalled.

I’ll be the first to point out the hordes of tourists as one of the biggest negative factors for any destination (very hypocritical of me, if you think about it, since I have no claim to not being a tourist myself), and on the main routes through Venice, away from the expanse of St Mark’s Square, in narrow streets and not very wide bridges, the crowd effect becomes horribly exaggerated. I’ll also concede that when the temperatures rise, plenty of canals start emanating strong smell of sewage. Those are serious and valid complaints frequently heard from people who leave Venice not exactly besotted with it.

All I can say to that is this: Get up at six in the morning one day, get on the slow Linea 1 vaporetto that runs the length of the Grand Canal, try to commandeer one of the few seats near the bow, and watch the rising sun illuminate palazzi that line the canal. If you do not end up mesmerized by what you see – forgive me for being blunt – I don’t know why you bother to travel to foreign destinations at all.

Or get into a gondola for a ride along narrow lesser waterways. Get over your misplaced condescension of this being a “corny” activity. Just do it. Maybe you’ll find the experience of noiselessly gliding under arched bridges in a sleek vessel incredibly romantic, maybe not. But you’ll have to be fascinated by the attributes of a lifestyle truly dependent on those little waterways, which you cannot get close enough to observe in any other way. And what is the purpose of travel if not to be fascinated with things that you cannot see at home?

Or simply get lost in the city. Forget about sights to see, just walk randomly in any direction without consulting the map. I bet you’ll come across of dozens of picturesque and evocative spots within a short period of time. A tiny bridge over a narrow colorful canal here, a quiet campiello with a striking little church there. If you are not delighted by what you see… uhm, I’m getting this-close to labelling you in an unflattering way.

We did all of that, and more. Many things were discovered, some things were discovered anew. We tried to build the itinerary to include as many sights and locales that we did not visit on our first trip to Venice years ago, but we covered all of the “must-see” points as well, for children’s sake. More importantly, we walked all over the city, used all various modes of water transport, explored islands in the lagoon, stepped into many churches, listened to music on St Mark’s, dined on fetching tucked-away little squares…

We did not want to leave. But the speed train eventually took us from La Serenissima to La Città Eterna.

It is hardly revelatory to state that Rome has untold treasures to offer to a willing visitor. There are thousands of years of history, although more is left to imagination than to actual seeing with your eyes when you view the ruins. (Pantheon is a notable and altogether remarkable exception – a well-preserved magnificent building that is almost two thousand years old.) There are dozens of arresting churches. There are unmissable attractions such as Castel Sant’Angelo. There is Vatican, with St Peter’s Cathedral and the most awesome square in front of it, as well as one of the top art museums in the world. There is quite a number of other museums and galleries.

And yet, what I adore most about this city is its squares and fountains. Spacious Piazza del Popolo; noisy Piazza di Spagna at the foot of eponymous stairway crowned by a requisite obelisk and a little church; splendid Piazza Navona with three fountains marking its elongated shape; crowded Piazza della Rotonda in front of the Pantheon; bustling Campo de’ Fiori; perpetually bursting at the seams piazza in front of the incomparable Fontana di Trevi; pompous Piazza Venezia with incongruous yet impressive “wedding cake” monument to the first king of the unified Italy; even not that impressive by itself Piazza Barberini with a beautiful Triton Fountain… Those are just the most famous ones. It would take too much time and space to account for all of the smaller ones that make me want to linger and enjoy.

Conversely, the streets that connect the squares are not overly attractive. Too many cars parked every which way, too few buildings of architectural note that are not looking out to squares of their own. But, since many of the squares and sights are in reasonable proximity to each other, Rome is an eminently walkable city as long as you are willing to keep your expectations in check while strolling the few blocks from one astonishing spot to another.

As in Venice, we tried to combine the need to show all of the must-see locations to our children with our desire to explore places that we left aside on our previous in-depth visit to the Italian capital. To achieve the former, we resorted to such heroic deeds as getting up really early to join the queue for the Vatican Museums an hour and half before its opening (by the time it opens, the line often stretches for several kilometers around Vatican walls and the wait time reaches three-four hours). But we managed enough of the not-seen-before sights to feel that we covered practically every major point of interest over the course of our overall stays there.

The updated Travelog notes on both Venice and Rome will be posted in near future, as always, but I am not sure when we will get to put up the photos from this trip, given how busy Natasha will be with relocation matters in the following weeks, with little time for Photoshoppery. To alleviate that a bit, here are two completely un-enhanced shots for your viewing pleasure.
 

 
As has been our custom these last three years, I returned home from a late-spring trip a year older if not exactly wiser. The airlines and border controls did their best to make my birthday an unpleasant one, but that’s subject for a separate – and, I’m afraid, repetitive, coming from me, – rant for another day.

To all of you who called and wrote and sent their good wishes, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Travel

Two and a half years of living in England, and we finally braved the concept of taking a day-trip to the continent.

From a certain point of view, it was a last-ditch effort to save the short tradition of spending the Early Spring Bank Holiday weekend on the mainland (specifically, in Paris). This year, for a combination of reasons, we had decided not to plan any trips for the three-day weekend. But suddenly, several days ago Natasha came up with a “crazy” idea: Why don’t we hop on the Eurotunnel train in the morning, drive a couple of hours to Brussels, and spend a day there with an emphasis on the Mini-Europe Park, which we so inadequately breezed through a year go.

We are people of action, as I’m fond to say; it did not take us long to conclude that it was a splendid idea and put the wheels in motion by procuring rather cheap Eurotunnel tickets. And yesterday, our very first intraday trip to a foreign country was effected to the general satisfaction.

It did not go all that smoothly, on account of the road construction along the usually fast motorway connecting Calais with Brussels. As we were approaching an hour of being stuck in a barely moving traffic, we changed our plans a bit and turned off for a lunch in Brugge, which was quite nice on its own merits, if not exactly raising to our expectation of a meal in Brussels’ Îlot Sacré. We then took some pretty back roads to go around the motorway traffic, and arrived in Brussels with plenty of time for a detailed exploration of Mini-Europe, but not enough time to do anything else in the city.

Still, we came back happy that we did it. Aside from being out and about, it was a true adventure that emphasized the main reason we came to live in Europe, while giving us a chance to properly recognize how many things and places we’ve seen in our relatively short time here – models of various landmarks that we had visited on our travels greeted us every step of the way in Mini-Europe. Photographic evidence of that is to follow eventually.

And yet, we probably will not make another trip like that again. As I pondered somewhere on this blog in the past, London is far from an ideal base for continental forays. Getting over the strip of water called the English Channel requires dependency on a mode of public transport which, aside from airport hassle or departure delays, also adds plenty of dead waiting time to your door-to-door travel. By my humble estimate, under ideal conditions, our door-to-door trip to a Brussels city-center destination could be made in 3 hours 15 minutes via getting on a plane, 3:30 by train, or 3:50 by car. Account for an hour difference between British time and continental time, most keenly felt in the morning, and you end up with just 6-8 hours of non-travel-time in your day. Our preferred mode of transport let us down considerably yesterday, but no matter what we chose or how well it could go, we’d spent roughly the same time traveling as we would enjoying our destination. For a single traveler – or a couple without children – the trade-off (and the requisite cost) might be acceptable, but for a family with kids, the reward does not truly justify the effort or the expense.

We had to try it, though.

European living, Travel

The April summer of previous years is late to materialize this year. It’s been reasonably sunny and pleasant for the last few days, but still on the cooler side of things.

That does not prevent a large segment of young English women to adopt a summer-y dress code. We went out to central London for a dinner last night, and practically every other woman that we saw sported the “seasonal” outfit of light blouse, high heels, short skirt – and bare legs. Even when those legs are shapely, looking at them in 50°F weather makes me shiver in empathy (as opposed to a more pleasant natural reaction I might have in a warmer environment). Plus, the common skin tone of an Englishwoman is pasty white. I applaud the self-confidence of any woman who feels secure to display her legs in public, but there is something weird in the sight of bare legs that are clearly never exposed to the sun in the normal course of events.

Our outing was excellent. We went to a restaurant that we’ve been to before, near the Borough Market, to meet up with Sharon and Vic, the fellow expats who started their own excellent adventure in faraway lands only a week ago. There were plenty of topics for conversation between people who heretofore had only known each other online. We ended up staying at our dinner table for good two hours after finishing with our meal, just chatting. It’s nice to make new friends.

And today, the weather is just gorgeous. We all four went to a nearby green space for some playground fun and attempts at playing frisbee. Didn’t want to come back inside…

On a different subject, I spent some time reviewing our expenses from the recent trip and confirmed the well-known observation that traveling to countries with distressed economies is fairly economical. For instance, we had sit-down restaurant meals a dozen times during our trip, and only three times exceeded £50 on the bill (four people, at least six dishes every time, plus drinks, and an occasional bottle of wine). Souvenirs, travel purchases, tickets to entertainment venues were all pretty cheap as well. Some of the biggies (lodging, transportation) were acquired for euros (in that, we are now in much worse position than, say, a year ago), but all of the transactions in local currencies were bargains. Our overall expenses for the trip were about 25% lower than they should have been compared to previous similar trips.

I have a feeling that they could have been even lower. Hungary was our first experience with a currency so out of whack with dollars, pounds and euros, that the lowest price of practically everything started at hundreds of the local currency units, forints. Dividing that price by 300 for a rough approximation – more than in euros, less than in pounds – of the cost of an item is not that taxing an exercise, but it quickly starts playing a trick on you: You look at a price tag in thousands of forints, and even before you do your calculation, you think “Ah, it must be peanuts” – and you end up buying stuff that you would think unnecessary if the price was expressed in more familiar units.

Happened to me a few times while in Hungary. Nothing major, but it probably added up to a few extra pounds.

Chronicles, Travel

… because every travel post should have some. And by virtue of our late arrival home on Wednesday, I did not have a chance to arm myself with pictures from our recent trip before I posted my brief trip overview. To compensate for that, here are two shots from that adventure. More will come in due time.
 

Pictures, Travel

Two major destinations, three new countries, and, not the least importantly, eight days of almost uninterrupted sunshine – that was the tally of our long-awaited new adventure.

We started with three days in Krakow. On our way from the airport to the hotel upon arrival, Natasha and I had the most vivid flashbacks to our childhood, so East-European- and Soviet-looking the large swathes of the city are. Many edifices of Soviet times remain within what should be called city “center”. The historic core of the city, however, is wholly delightful, with beautiful buildings and streets every step of the way. It is also relatively compact and can be easily covered on foot.

We toured the Royal Castle, stepped into half a dozen of different churches, explored the Jewish Quarter, took a trip to remarkable salt mines a dozen kilometers outside of the city, or simply lingered around the vast Market Square. We also had outstanding dining experiences at practically every eatery that we’ve chosen. Coupled with excellent weather – not hot, not cold, simply sunny and pleasant, – we certainly felt that Krakow loved us. The feeling was – is – mutual.

Our transfer to Budapest was effected by way of a comfortable private van, driven by a friendly middle-aged Slovakian who was more than happy to entertain us in Russian. Since the road from Krakow to Budapest crosses all of Slovakia through the middle from north to south, we had a chance to see quite a bit of that country, too. We also stopped for lunch in the atmospheric town of Banska Bystrica, whose great pedestrian central square is surrounded by buildings that would do honor to any better-known tourist destination.

Budapest turned out to be very different from Krakow, on the opposite side of the large urban center spectrum. Where Krakow’s core retains a small-town, centuries-of-history charm, the Hungarian capital is undeniably big, monumental and 19th-century-planned. It is, nonetheless, a veritable treasure trough of that century’s architecture, with palaces in various “Neo-” styles, common to the architectural boom of the mid-to-late 1800’s, found throughout the central Pest. There are a number of Secessionist – the Austrian-centric branch of Art Nouveau – buildings as well.

Pest, in fact, reminded us of Paris a lot, with its wide boulevards lined by buildings of almost-uniform height, converging on broad squares fronted by impressive palaces.

Buda Castle district is more dramatically positioned, but is less visually arresting from inside. Its main attraction might be the views over the city offered from a number of vantage points. We explored Buda quite a bit too, of course.

Aside from a few churches and a small picture gallery, we did not do much of museum-going in Budapest, preferring instead to walk around and entertain ourselves with “fun” activities such as a trip to the State Opera to see The Swan Lake (yes, we went to the opera but saw a ballet), a visit to the zoo and to an old-fashioned funfair, a morning of soaking at the renowned hot-springs baths, a cruise on the Danube, a browse through the enjoyable covered Market Hall, a folk dance and musical performance… Interestingly, our culinary explorations in Budapest were a notch below those in Krakow, although still quite impressive.

We liked Budapest a lot, too, in a different way than Krakow.

A tremendous trip overall. Detailed entries for Travelog and a picture gallery album will be presented to the public in short order, as usual.

Guess what kind of weather greeted us in London?

Yup, exactly!

Travel

Well, at least, one of us is. Becky has returned from her school trip, properly enchanted with the Far East, although expressly for reasons other than I might imagine myself being excited about. Most notably, she was impressed with the enthusiastic reception that she and her classmates were met with wherever they went.

She gave due marks to the major points of interest that she visited (Forbidden City, the Great Wall, Xian), but her most favorite parts of the trip related to markets and visiting small villages. She apparently met with reasonable success in price-haggling at the markets, employing a simple adage of “I’m only a student, I only have X yuan on me” (where the original quoted price would be X times 10 or something).

I’m sure she will share her impressions of the trip in her own blog today or tomorrow. Eventually, the pictures will also be available somewhere on the site.

One thing, though, that she was hoping for – and received – upon return was food some other than Chinese. There’s only so much of the Chinese cuisine she can take, apparently (and she is not overly fond of the Sichuan variety that she says was prevalent on the trip). Nonetheless, she insisted on using chopsticks to devour her portion of Olivier salad – something about eating with chopsticks makes the meal go slower, letting you better to savor it. Oo-kay!

Travel

I’m reading a passage in a travel book that describes a little town on canals in Italy as “not exactly Venice, but rather Bourton-on-the-Water disguised as Portmeirion”.

I realize that not only am I familiar with these references, but I can vividly imagine what the town should look like from the description.

Which turns my thoughts to our upcoming travels. Which is a welcome train of thought in the midst of a depressing week.

Travel

This little project has been years in the making.

When I worked on the movie about our first Paris trip, in 2002, the well-known Russian pop song was the obvious choice for an opening segment. Unfortunately, I realized that we did not tape a single scene related to the song lyrics then. Making a separate music video for the song became an item on my “someday” list.

A couple of visits to Paris later, in May of 2007, we finally got to taping necessary footage. Becky was enlisted as a principal camera-person and, during our wanderings about the city, she recorded Natasha and me walking around various sights.

Still, I did not get into the mood for movie-making for almost two years afterwards. But Natasha kept prodding me, and I eventually produced a reasonable piece of work, offered for your discerning appreciation herewith.

Travel, Videos & Music

Can I pass up a chance to travel someplace new, even when the focus of a short trip is on a subject of limited interest to me and the logistics involve spending a lot of time on the bus with a bunch of strangers that I have little in common with?

The answer is, resoundingly, I cannot!

A few weeks ago, during a get-together, my old friend Alex unexpectedly invited me to join him for a three-day trip to Scotland. I enthusiastically accepted. I had a number of reservations about doing it, but the little trip seemed like a perfect opportunity to explore a locale that I had never visited before, and it shaped up like a needed distraction from everyday gloom and doom.

I am happy to report that even though every one of my reservations played out true, the trip was nonetheless quite delightful.
Read more…

Travel

For those few who care, I have added pins and annotations to the US destinations on the World Map.

Travel, Website Bulletins