29 November 2012
I haven't been on a bike in three weeks. On Sunday I'll feel as if I'm kicking ass or I'll feel as if I'm getting my ass kicked. Either way, I'd like some company.
Let's meet at the usual winter spot, the Hopewell YMCA parking lot on Main Street in Pennington, across from Ingleside Ave. We'll start at 9:00 a.m. and go for 40-45 miles. Extra-milers can meet at my house for an 8:30 a.m. start; call ahead for coffee.
Contact me if you want to ride. No contacts, no ride.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Sunday, November 25, 2012
London: Crowds
25 November 2012
London is a big city. It doesn't feel big the way New York feels big. It doesn't tower overhead and block out the sun. London spreads. London is loud. Like New York, London always has something going on somewhere. I've been to London enough times now that I've lost count. Jack and I have a list of places and people that we always visit when we're here: the Design Museum, the Tate Modern, the British Museum; the shops in Covent Garden; Brycchan, Tiffany, Mazz.
Our first day was for loading up on coffee and CDs in Covent Garden. We'd done some research to find a few small coffee roasters who also sold beans. One of these places, called Notes, was a roaster, brewer, and purveyor of wine and jazz. I walked out with a caffeine buzz and two small bags of beans. Jack left with 50 CDs -- 5 boxed sets for about $18 each (those are iTunes prices).
The next roaster offered me a taste of what I was buying before I took my money out. I left with 500 grams of high-test and a kilogram of decaf. "Packing just got interesting," I texted Dale.
We met Brycchan for dinner. He's a successful English Literature professor in the UK has decided to get himself a biology degree on the side. My world-weariness of the scientific universe is no match for his enthusiasm. Now that I'm happy at work (two years and counting, unprecedented), his enthusiasm isn't irking me the way it used to.
On Thanksgiving day (it's just called Thursday over here) we visited the Design Museum and the Tate Modern, both of which were a little disappointing. While I'm better at museums than I used to be (one hour and I'd be ready to leave), I find myself getting annoyed at modern art labels. I mean, really, if the curator has to describe in florid detail what the piece is claiming to represent, then the artist hasn't done a good job. Our all-time favorite is a label we saw a handful of years ago on a bronze hot dog: "This piece represents nuclear war." Right. Next? This time around, Jack and I noticed a distinct positive correlation between the obvious lack of artistic merit and the floridity of the label.
We had dinner with Adam and Louise, during which I introduced Louise to the World of Laboratory Science though an old video on my old iPhone (pressed back into service with a shiny, new, UK phone number) that I'd done for Dale to show her what where I work looks like. On our long bus ride home, one of my colleagues and his wife texted me. We got into a long conversation about annoying contemporary art. That she, who has a degree in art history and museums, agreed with me, was a comfort.
Saturday's plans were less ambitious. We figured we'd stay local and visit a few book shops, maybe the Natural History museum.
Those of you who've spent any time around me have heard me say "There are too many people on this planet." Nowhere is this more obvious than on a rainy, late-November day in London when one finds that two Tube lines aren't running, climbs aboard a bus that turns off its route unannounced because a demonstration has closed a main road, steps out far from one's destination, and figures one might as well see Harrods (no apostrophe, the place is that old) while one is in the neighborhood.
Penn Station at rush hour has nothing on this place. Jack figured he might as well buy his mother some tea while we were here. I inserted myself into the crush of the chocolate section while Jack waited in the cashier's line. I'm glad that my suitcase is loaded with Spanish chocolate; I didn't feel tempted (well, maybe a little) to buy anything from Harrods. Some people love the crowded rush of Christmas shopping. Jack and I were looking for the exit.
We decided to try to walk back to the hotel, in the rain. After half a mile of what would have been a 3-mile walk, we got into a taxi that got us near, but not to, the hotel. The driver, who provided the most entertainment we'd had all day, finally gave up and let us out in the middle of a traffic jam. We were just a few minutes from the hotel at that point, and we walked faster than the speed of traffic all the way to the front door.
The day ended well, though. In the evening we met with Mazz and Graham for dinner at a posh restaurant. We got home smoothly, too.
So. Pictures.
I haven't taken many. Those that I have taken, though, are for those of you who really only read this blog because you want to read about bikes and biking. These pictures are for you.
Painted bicycles border an outdoor cafe:
This one was here just because:
This is not a bike shop. It is the commuter parking area outside of the Euston train station:
Today is our last day of vacation. We'll wander a museum or two, then meet with Tiffany for dinner. I'm going to sign off now. I have to make all the coffee, chocolate, and books fit into my suitcase.
See y'all on the road next weekend.
London is a big city. It doesn't feel big the way New York feels big. It doesn't tower overhead and block out the sun. London spreads. London is loud. Like New York, London always has something going on somewhere. I've been to London enough times now that I've lost count. Jack and I have a list of places and people that we always visit when we're here: the Design Museum, the Tate Modern, the British Museum; the shops in Covent Garden; Brycchan, Tiffany, Mazz.
Our first day was for loading up on coffee and CDs in Covent Garden. We'd done some research to find a few small coffee roasters who also sold beans. One of these places, called Notes, was a roaster, brewer, and purveyor of wine and jazz. I walked out with a caffeine buzz and two small bags of beans. Jack left with 50 CDs -- 5 boxed sets for about $18 each (those are iTunes prices).
The next roaster offered me a taste of what I was buying before I took my money out. I left with 500 grams of high-test and a kilogram of decaf. "Packing just got interesting," I texted Dale.
We met Brycchan for dinner. He's a successful English Literature professor in the UK has decided to get himself a biology degree on the side. My world-weariness of the scientific universe is no match for his enthusiasm. Now that I'm happy at work (two years and counting, unprecedented), his enthusiasm isn't irking me the way it used to.
On Thanksgiving day (it's just called Thursday over here) we visited the Design Museum and the Tate Modern, both of which were a little disappointing. While I'm better at museums than I used to be (one hour and I'd be ready to leave), I find myself getting annoyed at modern art labels. I mean, really, if the curator has to describe in florid detail what the piece is claiming to represent, then the artist hasn't done a good job. Our all-time favorite is a label we saw a handful of years ago on a bronze hot dog: "This piece represents nuclear war." Right. Next? This time around, Jack and I noticed a distinct positive correlation between the obvious lack of artistic merit and the floridity of the label.
We had dinner with Adam and Louise, during which I introduced Louise to the World of Laboratory Science though an old video on my old iPhone (pressed back into service with a shiny, new, UK phone number) that I'd done for Dale to show her what where I work looks like. On our long bus ride home, one of my colleagues and his wife texted me. We got into a long conversation about annoying contemporary art. That she, who has a degree in art history and museums, agreed with me, was a comfort.
Saturday's plans were less ambitious. We figured we'd stay local and visit a few book shops, maybe the Natural History museum.
Those of you who've spent any time around me have heard me say "There are too many people on this planet." Nowhere is this more obvious than on a rainy, late-November day in London when one finds that two Tube lines aren't running, climbs aboard a bus that turns off its route unannounced because a demonstration has closed a main road, steps out far from one's destination, and figures one might as well see Harrods (no apostrophe, the place is that old) while one is in the neighborhood.
Penn Station at rush hour has nothing on this place. Jack figured he might as well buy his mother some tea while we were here. I inserted myself into the crush of the chocolate section while Jack waited in the cashier's line. I'm glad that my suitcase is loaded with Spanish chocolate; I didn't feel tempted (well, maybe a little) to buy anything from Harrods. Some people love the crowded rush of Christmas shopping. Jack and I were looking for the exit.
We decided to try to walk back to the hotel, in the rain. After half a mile of what would have been a 3-mile walk, we got into a taxi that got us near, but not to, the hotel. The driver, who provided the most entertainment we'd had all day, finally gave up and let us out in the middle of a traffic jam. We were just a few minutes from the hotel at that point, and we walked faster than the speed of traffic all the way to the front door.
The day ended well, though. In the evening we met with Mazz and Graham for dinner at a posh restaurant. We got home smoothly, too.
So. Pictures.
I haven't taken many. Those that I have taken, though, are for those of you who really only read this blog because you want to read about bikes and biking. These pictures are for you.
Painted bicycles border an outdoor cafe:
This one was here just because:
This is not a bike shop. It is the commuter parking area outside of the Euston train station:
Today is our last day of vacation. We'll wander a museum or two, then meet with Tiffany for dinner. I'm going to sign off now. I have to make all the coffee, chocolate, and books fit into my suitcase.
See y'all on the road next weekend.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Bilbao: Bent Metal and Fat Paintings
Being a vegetarian in Spain is not easy. That I do eat eggs and cheese makes life somewhat easier. Even then, there are only so many tortillas (Spanish omelettes) and only so much goat cheese I can handle in a day. I get around it by packing protein bars and a sense of humor.
I already knew that ham is a vegetable in France and Spain. Being served a "vegetable salad" that included a lump of canned tuna was a new one on me, especially since it came on the heels of a long conversation in broken Spanish during which I said, "solamente verduras" (only vegetables). What calories I lacked in protein I made up for in carbs and sugar. There were a few days where I went to sleep not feeling too well.
We'd be in Spain for only two more days before flying to London, where a pig is a pig, a fish is a fish, and a plant is a plant.
Signs in Barcelona appear in two languages: Catalan and Spanish. In more touristy areas the third would be English. Catalan is enough like French and Spanish that Jack and I could usually figure out what the signs meant. When we got to Bilbao, Catalan was replaced by Basque. Basque is unintelligible:
This is from an introduction to a cookbook.
The topiary dog is souvenir fodder. In full bloom, the greenery is covered in color.
A specialty beer shop stocked labels drawn by Ralph Steadman:
The street next to our hotel (which was across from the Guggenheim) had a view of mountains on one side and the museum on the other.
There were recycling bins every few blocks too (bottom right in the picture above).
The inside of the museum reminded me of the inside of the Perelman building at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Fair enough that HUP's architect echoes Gehry, but to me it evoked memories of MRIs and mammograms. This place has curves, though.
We saw the Claes Oldenburg exhibit. Anyone who has spent time in Philadelphia knows his enormous clothespin sculpture. Anyone who's been on Penn's Locust Walk has seen the broken button; anyone who's been a student there has played on it. Bilbao's exhibit was of his early work and soft sculptures. The soft sculptures were fun. As for the early work in cardboard, well, let's just say he improved with age.
The drawings of Egon Scheile were interesting in that I'd never heard of the guy before. The exhibit that was supposedly on modern interior architecture, which turned out to be about three colossal wastes of space, was a waste of time as well.
We had fun walking through the Richard Serra sculptures. The second one from the front, with its walls slanting in parallel, was disorienting. By the third sculpture we'd pretty much gotten his shtick.
It was raining as the sun set.
We spent about an hour at the nearby museum of fine arts, where we saw an exhibit of Fernando Botero's paintings. A one-word Botero summary: fat. Fat people, fat horses, fat, fat, fat. Comically fat. Beyond American fat.
From there we went back to the hotel. On the top floor is one of Bilbao's finest restaurants, and Jack wanted to eat there. Fortunately for me, the waiter understood what I meant when I said, "solamente verduras y quesos" (only vegetables and cheeses). He replied that I would have to have wild mushrooms, in season now, that the chef would gladly prepare for me. Jack ordered pigeon. Jack ate pigeon. I teased Jack about eating pigeon. Jack cooed like a pigeon. I texted my English friend, Mazz, who'd we'd be seeing soon, that Jack was eating pigeon. She replied that I should keep him out of Trafalgar Square.
Two days later, Jack and I were in Trafalgar Square. I kept an eye on him.
I don't tend to take many pictures in London. I've got three so far, all of bikes. I'll post them soon.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Haro: Wineries and Men of a Certain Age
The train from Barcelona to Bilbao took 7 hours, most of it in the dark. We pulled into Bilbao after 9 p.m. and had dinner in the hotel at the fashionable hour of 10:20 p.m. The advantage of eating on Spanish time is that, with the six hour time difference, dinner at 10 feels, if anything, early.
Unfortunately, early was also when we had to wake up the next day for a 7:30 a.m. bus to Haro, something between a town and a village in the heart of the Rioja Alta winemaking country. An hour later we stumbled out of the bus, the sun having risen only a short time before. There was a cafeteria in the station. It was patronized by men, most of them small, some of them bus drivers. We decided to look for something more substantial.
We found another cafeteria a few blocks away. Again it was populated by men, small, and of a certain age. After two espressos and a tortilla (what we'd call a Spanish omelet), I began to wake up.
After getting turned around a few times on winding streets, we found the winery that Jack had chosen for the tour. He's fond of R. Lopez de Heredia's Vina Tondonia rioja's, aged far longer than most winemakers would find necessary, and weird-tasting enough for Jack to adore. It's one of the few wines I don't spit out, which doesn't mean I actually like the stuff; I just don't spit it out.
We were early, to I took pictures to pass the time.
Is there a day care center for the kids while mom and dad take a tour? Or are we going to have to sit on these?
The tour group consisted of me and Jack, a handful of New Zealanders (two who had qualified for the New York City Marathon and gotten there in time for its cancellation), and a few from the UK. We got lots of questions about the hurricane once we told them where, exactly, we were from.
This is the room where the wine first ferments.
Burlap covers the only window:
The winery, 130 years old, has been keeping harvest records. Grapes used to be picked at the end of November. This year the harvest was at the end of October. Only once before has it been earlier, in 2003, when a hot summer forced an early September harvest.
Two wine presses:
While the tour guide answered questions, I took pictures. I hang around Jack enough when he's talking wine that I have a pretty good idea of what's going on.
This winery has its own coopery -- its own barrel-makers. The guide led us in. Here, a barrel is being made from planks of oak imported from the U.S.
Old, wine-stained staves:
A cooper's tools:
An old barrel being repaired:
Deep in the cellars, barrels are stacked in a long hallway, a set of rails in the middle for moving the barrels:
The building was once a warehouse. Rail cars took loads from the river.
The Ebro (in English, "Raritan"):
Vina Tondonia, one of four pieces of land the vineyard owns:
Inside again, we were taken to the "cathedral," where the oldest bottles age. Mold -- Penicillium -- covering the bottles and hanging from the ceilings like cobwebs, is welcome here.
To eliminate sediment after the first fermentation, egg whites are added to the large vats. As the whites settle they take sediments with them. The winery used to have its own chicken coops.
Sediments are cleared again in a process called "barrel racking." Wine is poured from one barrel to the next, its clarity checked against a single light bulb as it passes through. The sediments stay in the first barrel and the second one is topped off. This is repeated several times as the wine ages.
Outside, metal rails aid rolling barrels:
Another winery:
Haro, Hollywood, same thing:
Close to 1 p.m., Jack and I were back in the center of town seemingly populated by men of a certain age, small, round, and unhurried.
A butcher, in a white butcher's coat, passed us, a slab of meat hoisted over his right shoulder.
We were looking for the wine museum. We found it, but it was closed.
At an outdoor cafe we had lunch. Jack ate octopus with potatoes while I faced a plate of pickled leeks. Then Jack had something meaty while I had goat cheese topped with tomato preserves. As we ate, more unhurried men passed by. One caught our attention especially, but he was too close to us for me to have pulled out my camera. He was dark-haired, bushy-eyebrowed, small, mustachioed, well-dressed, a suit jacket draped over his shoulders. He held the lapels as he sauntered past us, first uphill, then, ten minutes later, back down, still in the same pose.
We'd run out of town, so we sat in a park, where the sycamore trees, like the men, were small and round.
The vineyard is on the upper left side of this map. The town is on the right, and we pretty much walked all of it.
At the bus depot with more time to spare, there were a few things worth photographing.
Back in Bilbao, we wandered the old city, bought some chocolate, and ate dinner (more goat cheese for me) in a near-empty restaurant at the fashionable hour of 9 p.m. Museums were in tomorrow's plans,
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