Las Vegas and NIN #55

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We picked our random vacation week then Trent announced shows in Las Vegas at the same time, so decision made. We stayed at The Plaza because I wanted to be able to go to a nice pool, since it was going to be sweltering, and they have a new rooftop pool area. Adam decided to go to the show too after I bought my tickets, so he joined us after a few days.

As soon as we got there, off to Drag Brunch at Treasure Island. There were 6 queens, all past RuPaul’s Drag Race alumns, it was awesome. And there were bottomless mimosas, so we drank 3 bottles of champagne with the (not great) breakfast buffet. That didn’t end well for me, but the show was awesome, and though I lost the rest of the day, it was worth it lol.

Monday we made plans to meet up with Adr1 and Tom and the kids. We were going to try to do some trivia but there wasn’t really any going on so we met up to check out the Container Park, then went up near their house to a pizza place for dinner who was having music bingo. Tom didn’t feel well so he left us there, and we ate and played for a bit. It was fun, even though it wasn’t trivia really because you could use your phone to look up the songs if you didn’t know them.

Adam arrived Tuesday morning, we hung at the pool a bit and Adr joined me with the kids. So we had a good time in the water, and chatting, and Adr said the nicest thing ever – that I’m still her favorite person to do nothing with LOL awwww. <3 She needs to move back to Buffalo! Tuesday night we ended up checking out the High Roller giant ferris wheel on the strip, which was pretty neat. Wednesday was the show. Honestly, I wasn't all that excited about it because I really don't care for the EPs, but I told Adam that I would try not to be an asshole about it lol. He had VIP and went down early, plus I had no interest in queueing. I've gotten too old for this shit. Plus the lack of excitement, I didn't feel the need to be up front. BUT, it's still Trent and I still love him. The line was insanely long when we finally did get there, but we didn't end up with a bad spot. Pretty central in all ways, and other than the guy who didn't put his arms down, filming the entire show on his phone, I could see decently. I hate that I have to admit this. Maybe I've aged out of NIN shows? Don't get me wrong, it was still good, but I don't get any of the catharsis, or really any of the energy I used to get from the shows. Is it because I'm not up front? Have I just seen too many that they've lost their effect? I am pretty tired of seeing March of the Pigs after all. It makes me sad though. The setlist was pretty good, Year Zero heavy up front, not too many new songs, and some deep cuts that were very welcome. But as J said, the middle got a little boring with The Lovers and Find My Way back to back (he was probably bored with Even Deeper too, but NO!!! I will always take Even Deeper as a slow song!) And BONUS!!! NO HURT!!! And no Closer, which I do always enjoy, but it's ok. 1. Pinion / The Eater of Dreams 2. Metal 3. Me, I'm Not 4. The Beginning Of The End 5. Survivalism 6. March of the Pigs 7. The Lovers 8. Find My Way 9. Burn 10. God Break Down the Door 11. Letting You 12. Gave Up 13. Even Deeper 14. I Do Not Want This 15. I'm Afraid Of Americans 16. Less Than 17. Came Back Haunted 18. Only 19. Wish 20. Head Like A Hole So...it was good. But I just don't get the emotional benefit that I used to, so...I am very unlikely to travel to see him anymore (unless he puts out something I love, or does some kind of very unusual out of left field tour, like an all acoustic tour or something), and if he continues to do stupid things like "you can only buy tickets in person" crap, this may have been my last show. 55 is a good number to stop on. Now this brings me to his new EP, Bad Witch. I haaaate it. And if I'm honest, I basically hate the other 2 EPs as well, though there are a few tracks I like here and there. But everything I liked about NIN is gone. Trent's brilliance was in his ability to craft a song that could be loud, angry, noisy and heavy but still have a musicality to it, with a catchy hook and a melody. It's all gone. If he wants to experiment fine, go for it, but it is not what you expect and want from NIN. Even though I didn't love Hesitation Marks, it had solid actual songs, and not just movie scores for a non existent movie that he decided to put lyrics to. Because that's what it feels like. And I hate it. And I'm not going to listen to it.

Posted in: Nine Inch Nails, US Vacations, Vacations \ Tagged: , , ,

Washington DC 2016

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It was time for my randomly booked vacation week, and while I waited and waited for the DC Bloody Mary Fest to announce a date, so I could change my week and try to go at that time, they take forever and I finally gave up and just booked a trip to visit Cassie during my already booked week. So I went Thursday night til Monday night, and it wouldn’t be one of my vacations unless it threatened rain the entire time and was cool and gloomy. It ended up only in the 50s most of the time, but I didn’t get really rained on until leaving for the airport to go home. And really, 50s is ok, it’s not hot and unpleasant, and not freezing.

Arrived Thursday late afternoon and basically just hung out, with the intent to go to bed fairly early so we could get up early to make the trek down to the Williamsburg area. The main reason to go down there was to try to visit the field of President heads that was featured in Smithsonian Magazine a few months ago. From our recon, it looked like it wouldn’t be too hard to just drive by the farmhouse and keep going, because it looked like a normal road. When we got there we found it was a private road, which we went down anyway, but there was a ton of construction going on on the property, and no way to drive past the house toward the heads. Lots of people were around and looking at us as we turned around, so sadly, no President head photos. Since we were down that way, and we didn’t have an interest in spending $50 to visit Colonial Williamsburg reenactment site, we passed that and went to the real historical site of the Jamestowne colony. When you approach the area of the colony, you come to this fancy building, and for $17 you get to go through the site and see reenacters and exhibits, and learn about the colony….we bought tickets, but then looking through the map brochure, I noticed that this wasn’t really where we wanted to be. We had planned to visit the actual site, where they’re still doing archaeological digs, and was part of the National Park system. So we asked the ticket lady and she said no, that wasn’t where we were, we had to keep driving past that area, and gave us a refund. We almost got fooled into another “silly” reenactment area!! (Ok it’s probably nice, it’s part of the Virginia Museum system or whatever, but it’s not the National Park). Cheaters. Stealing the park’s tourists. We got where we wanted to be, and spent a few hours walking around the original colony site and seeing some of the current digs still being worked on. It was neat. Grabbed some food, got a speeding ticket 🙁 and headed back to Reston for the night.

Saturday was still gloomy, but had a better forecast (no rain) than Sunday so our goal was the National Arboretum in DC. Grabbed some brunch (even if I didn’t attend a bloody mary fest, I made my own, with 4 different places), and on the way to brunch passed Arlington Cemetery, and decided to detour and go visit since I hadn’t been there before. It was really nice, and we had perfect timing to witness the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Spent a few hours walking around there, and decided to go to the Arboretum anyway, though it was late. I was hungry by then, and another potential bloody mary stop I had mapped out was on the way so we stopped at Union Market to grab one. Union Market is a really cool place full of all kinds of different little lunch counters set up. Very hipster lol. All the food offerings looked really good, if I lived there I’d definitely frequent it. It’s sorta what the new Expo Market in Buffalo is aspiring to be, but 4 times as big. My bloody mary from Buffalo and Bergen came with a bagel sandwich with lox, cream cheese, onion and capers. Dear lord it was ridiculous, and it was a good lunch. Eventually made it to the Arboretum with an hour to go, and checked out just a little bit of it. It would be a cool place to visit again, lots of trails to investigate. Saturday night we went to see Cassie’s friend play jazz at a cajun place in Manassas.

Sunday was supposed to storm so we chose that day to go to the Udvar Hazy Air and Space Museum in VA so I could see the space shuttle Discovery. Gah. I’d been to the DC Air and Space a few times, and I’m really not an airplane person, but space craft is a different story. It is so amazing, and I wasn’t sure I’d not cry (I wanted to, but I managed to keep it in). All the other air craft at the museum is nice too, some really cool looking planes, the Concorde, plus the ridiculously awesome SR-71 Blackbird spy plane (the other centerpiece of the museum after the shuttle). But the shuttle!!! They did a super nice job with the hangar they built for it, and your initial impression of it when you walk in, it’s awesome. That’s the only word for it, used the appropriate way. Full of awe. I get amazed sometimes about what humans have accomplished, this was one of those times. They have a whole host of other space craft, like the various Mercury capsules (they had John Glenn’s Friendship 7 in the restoration hangar, which was awesome), and an area of hanging satellites which were super cool. Just so much awesome. Highly recommended. (That night, we looked up where the other shuttles ended up and Atlantis is at Kennedy Space Center, in an equally awesome display, so now I have to go there, and one ended up in LA and their eventual permanent display is going to have it displayed vertically with the rocket boosters, which will also be amazing). I managed to only spend $50 at the gift shop, and $12 of that was to become a member of the Smithsonian (suggestive selling at work). I got a mug in the shape of the bottom of a rocket, a neat 3-d metal puzzle/model of the shuttle, a shuttle pen (not an astronaut pen, those are $30) and a memo holder that looks like Sputnik!!! So cool, so nerdy.

Monday Cassie had to work and I had the whole day to be a tourist before my flight home, so she dropped me off at the subway and I went downtown. My plan was the National Zoo, and then I figured I’d stop by the monuments for a bit because I hadn’t gone to them since the 8th grade class field trip in 1994. Then there was a fog advisory, and I thought, holy crap that’s probably awesome looking so I flipped my plan and went to the monuments first (the fog had lifted mostly by the time I got there but there was still a bit hiding the top of Washington, so it was neat). I started with the Einstein statue on the way to Lincoln, where I spent 5 minutes watching a bird fight. It was so weird. Einstein is a little pudgy and cute. Onto Lincoln and the reflecting pool. I thought about renting a bike share, because I knew it was going to be a bit of a hike to get from Lincoln to Jefferson, but I didn’t know what I’d do with it while I went into the monuments, since I had no lock so I just walked. FDR was one of my goals because I’d never been to that monument, and along the way was the Korean War monument (new since my last visit 22 years ago lol) and MLK monument (new in the last few years). The Korea monument was really very nice, no one was at MLK because it’s sorta in between the reflecting pool area, and the tidal basin, and if you’re walking the signage isn’t fantastic to get to the tidal basin. I had to back track a bit to find where I needed to go to get to MLK and FDR. Lots of people at FDR because there were buses. FDR, my fav president! He had a nice memorial with lots of waterfalls, lots of great quotes, and everything had braille which I thought was neat. One area of these bronze columns and bronze panels could have used some interpretation, I really couldn’t figure out what it was representing, and I tried to listen into one of the field trips but couldn’t quite hear. Since I had already made it that far, I continued walking to the Jefferson Memorial, which we had only driven by on the bus in 8th grade. He has a nice fairly simple memorial, with a nice view across the tidal pool. I was ready to move on to the zoo, so I googled the closest metro stop, and walking there took me past Washington (which I also haven’t really been to, but am not really interested in). So I saw them all except Vietnam, which I’ve been to twice, and there was no need to visit again (I have no family attachment, and you only really need to look up Thomas Fox, the guy who’s name my childhood street was named after, once.)

The National Zoo was fairly nice, though not my favourite zoo ever. They have giant pandas, including a baby, which is the main draw to the zoo at the moment. It is an Olmsted designed park/zoo (it seems like they all are!), and I actually hated the layout. It wasn’t really a loop, so I ended up missing things, having to back track to areas 3 or 4 times, and when I decided I was done and it was time to leave (skipping Amazonia because I wasn’t backtracking AGAIN), I had to walk through the entire zoo again to get out and get back to the metro, which was a mile away. The sun finally came out while at the zoo and it got pretty hot, and I got sunburned of course. The pandas were nice to see, tho I’d seen some, and a baby, in San Diego with the Foos. Buffalo Zoo has a nicer bird house, with a ton of birds, where DC’s had a parrot a duck and 2 peacocks….I thought I was missing something. They had 2 sand cats, which were super cute (they look like house cats, but live in the desert), and 2 adorable baby fennec foxes. They had a bunch of big cats, lions, tigers, cheetah. A whole group of elephants. It was nice, just not mind blowing. The Phoenix zoo’s monkey enclosure where they run around you was one of the best zoo things I’ve been in, nothing like that here.

So I headed back to the subway, and to Reston and Cassie picked me up at the station. Grabbed dinner, and relaxed before my flight. Enter giant thunderstorms and torrential rain. My flight was delayed, but then not delayed. Of course, the exact time we had to leave for the airport was the worst of the rain, and I had to run to the car through rivers of water running down the sidewalks, and step into a pond in the parking lot to get in the car, where the water was over my shoes and my sneakers filled with enough water that I had to pour it out. So my flight home I had soaking wet freezing feet, but at least it wasn’t cancelled like my normal luck flying. Then I get home to find my furnace has broken and it was 58 in my house, so I couldn’t even get warm lol. Life.

Had a great time, saw so much stuff. I bought a jawbone fitness tracker a few months ago, and this was my first vacation with it, and I had been wondering how much walking you/I do on vacation. In my normal life, though I walk a lot at work, I rarely get over the 10,000 step goal unless I’ve jogged 2 miles and/or went shopping somewhere. The Arlington day measured almost 12,000 steps, 5 miles, but Monday…dear god I got almost 28,000 steps, which was 12 miles LOL. My feet were hurting so bad at the end when I had to walk all the way back through the zoo, and I was so hot, but no blisters, so that’s good. I’d not have made it if there were blisters. The other 2 days hovered around 6-7k, which seems kinda low. I chalk it up to the tracker not being good at measuring “slow walking”, which there was a lot of at the museum. Suuuuper sore now though, I think I’ll be just fine sitting on the couch all day waiting for the furnace guy.

Asides:

  • DC is a good place to take a family because all of the Smithsonian related museums are free. So if you’ve got a couple and a bunch of kids, you aren’t spending $100s to get entry into each museum. I guess parking is expensive ($15 flat at Udvar, hourly at Arlington, $25 or something at the zoo), but if you stay in the right place, a lot is walkable.
  • I know that we were probably equally obnoxious to other visitors when we went in 8th grade, but we didn’t all have our heads in our phones, taking tons of selfies with selfie sticks, etc. I do remember a teacher scolding me and a friend for imitating a statue of a nurse holding a body (WWII female/nurse memorial or something), and I didn’t understand it as disrespectful at the time, but it was, and these kids were the same…taking photos behind the men standing in a bread line at the FDR memorial…but here, their teachers were taking the photos, not scolding them.
  • I had to pee at the Lincoln Memorial, and the bathrooms are ground level to the left if you’re looking at the front. I mention this because there is also a small museum on that side, with photos of the construction, different events and protests there, and it was really cool and probably not many people know it’s there. THEN you can take an elevator back up into the memorial instead of going back out and taking the stairs again (because I wasn’t done shooting it).

 

And now a political aside. All these Presidential monuments feature quotes from each one, profound, inspiring statements from speeches and writings. Regardless of what side of the political spectrum you are on, these quotes and these accomplishments are inspiring. Then you think about what this election has become, and the things that get said, and wonder….in 2050, or 2100, what is President Trump’s memorial going to look like? (Who am I kidding, President Trump will start building his own monument as soon as he takes the oath.) Something gold and phallic I’m sure (yes I know all obelisks are phallic, but it will be the greatest, the most phallic obelisk). Epic quotes like, “I have the best words” and “bleeding out of wherever”…”I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.”…”The beauty of me is that I’m very rich”…”My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”

What have we become?

Posted in: US Vacations, Vacations \ Tagged: ,

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

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I can’t believe I saw Hedwig on Broadway 3 times and never once posted about it. So now I’m going to rectify that.

I discovered Hedwig and the Angry Inch in college, because I saw a photo of John Cameron Mitchell in Hedwig makeup in a magazine and thought he looked awesome. Soon enough I was seeing the movie with Carolyn and Adrienne and I looooved it. I pretty much made everyone I knew at the time watch it, and everyone loved it, including LeighAnne who learned about Hedwig when she was coming up to visit me and planning on moving to Buffalo. It didn’t go over so well when we played it for James and Brian though, who called it “the worst movie they’d ever seen”. Careful guys, your homophobia is showing. I attempted to kick them out of my house, but they didn’t believe me and thought I was joking, but they should know, even though it’s been over 10 years, I will never forgive them for that. (For what it’s worth, Brian did apologize, saying that he wouldn’t have wanted me to say that if he had shown me one of his favorite movies.)

Rumors have flown around for years about Hedwig going to Broadway, and in 2014 it finally did. OMG I was so excited at the announcement that it was being revived, that it didn’t matter how much it was going to cost me, I was going to go. They announced it would be a limited run starring Neil Patrick Harris. I didn’t know what to think about that, because I didn’t know he was a singer, but I didn’t care. I was going.

So what turned out to be the first trip to NYC came in May 2014 with Jason, Susan, Jessica and Nick. LeighAnne was supposed to come as well but had to cancel so Jess found a friend who was interested in the ticket. We flew down for just one night for the show, but it turned into 2 nights when our flight home was cancelled due to weather. Ah well.

The show did so well with NPH they extended the run and started having new actors play Hedwig. I didn’t think I’d go again though, we’re just too far away. Then one day I woke up to the news that Michael C Hall was going to play Hedwig. What? Dexter as Hedwig? I had to go. So Jason and I bought tickets to treat ourselves for Christmas and drove to NYC (so flights couldn’t get canceled in the winter and make us miss the show) in December 2014.

But right after I had bought the tickets to see Michael C Hall it was announced that he’d be followed by the one, the only, the original, John Cameron Mitchell. *dies* I literally started laughing in bed when I read it, I just could not believe it. We had just bought the MCH tickets though, so I let it go…until we went to the MCH show. I decided I couldn’t NOT see John Cameron Mitchell as Hedwig on BROADWAY, so when we got home, I bought us another set of tickets, and we went for the final time in March 2015.

So the first show with NPH, I was just so excited because I really never thought I’d see a major production of Hedwig. I was sitting next to a guy from the south somewhere, who was as excited as I was, and we both said we’d probably cry through the whole thing. I thought it was so great that he and his girlfriend had traveled all the way to NYC because he loved Hedwig so much, given that the South isn’t known for it’s open mindedness. He had a bunch of souvenirs when I sat down, and he was so excited “They had a Shroud of Hedwig, wanna see?!?” I did cry when it started because, again, I just never thought I’d see it live. And during Origin of Love. And during Midnight Radio, because I can’t help it. NPH did a fantastic job as Hedwig, and he sang better than I expected. His performance was funny, bringing out more of the comedic aspects of the show, and he seemed to play Hedwig as a pretty happy character despite the bitterness and sadness of the story.

The 2nd show with MCH, it took me a while to get into it, because despite the make up and wig, I still could see MCH, and at the time I only knew MCH as Dexter. But after a few songs I forgot all that, and it was just Hedwig. MCH was definitely still a man in a dress, he was the manliest Hedwig, but he was fantastic as well. I didn’t know he had a musical theater background either, so I was impressed. I cried at Midnight Radio, again…MCH was still funny when Hedwig was funny, but he played Hedwig differently than NPH, more emotional and sad about life. NPH had more energy, or flamboyance than MCH, but maybe MCH is a more realistic portrayal of Hedwig, since Hedwig is really a forced transgender woman, based on his living situation, and not truly transgender in a sense that he felt like a woman trapped in a man’s body. I feel like Hedwig would still have some manly characteristics despite being forced to live as a woman now. Jason thought MCH was better than NPH.

But then there was JCM! I seriously cannot believe I got to see the original Hedwig. O.M.G. I feel so thankful, and like my life is complete. God, just, so awesome. So a few weeks before our show JCM hurt his knee during a show, and was replaced for a week by MCH again so he could heal, and I happened to convince my friend Emily to see it when she was in NY. I was sad she didn’t get to see JCM, but she loved MCH. Then I convinced another friend, Anthony, to see it, and he did – the day before we were going to JCM. He texted a few things about the show that I didn’t really follow because at the time I had no idea JCM was performing injured, in a knee brace.  So the show we saw was a bit different than what JCM was doing before the injury, but it was still phenomenal, and funny, and fantastic. JCM is my favorite, I’m not sure anyone could top him in my opinion. The injury was written into the script, with the story that Hedwig had gotten Nancy Kerrigan-ed by a man in a Michael C Hall mask, or at least, she thought it was a mask LOL! Much of the show was performed while sitting in a stool, and Yitzak had to bring Hedwig a box to rest his leg on, which when he forgot, earned him the wrath of Hedwig. JCM’s Hedwig was bitter and angry but still funny and likable. The jokes have been updated with different names (like John Mayer instead of Phil Collins, etc) and there are some new bits special for the Broadway production, but the show is very on script compared to the movie, same lines with the same inflection. However, JCM ad-libbed a lot more than the other 2, with his show actually going 2o minutes longer. Apparently James Franco was in the audience with us, which JCM mentioned in the show in one of his ad-libbed speeches. I cried at the beginning, again, because…JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL AS HEDWIG!! And I cried during Midnight Radio, again. God, it was just so fantastic.

There were 2 more Hedwigs before the show closed on Broadway, but they are taking it on the road, so here’s hoping I’ll get to see it a few more times with some more interesting actors. Surely it’ll go to Toronto, if not Buffalo, and I keep joking that I’ll be going to see it in London’s west end once Daniel Radcliff and David Tennant are named as Hedwigs (not joking, better start racking up some credit card airline points).

OH MY GOD I GOT TO SEE HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH ON BROADWAY THREE TIMES INCLUDING ONCE WITH JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL!!!! HOLY CRAAAAAP.

Posted in: Personal \ Tagged: ,

Arizona October 2015

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J and I headed west to Arizona for vacation in Phoenix and Tucson. The main reason was the Arizona Taco Fest in Scottsdale, which I was supposed to go to a few years ago with LeighAnne but we had to cancel. We were also going to go to Tucson for the Titan Missile Silo tour, so we added that onto this trip too.

We headed out on Wednesday, flying to Phoenix and then driving to Tucson for 2 nights. We stopped at Wild Horse Pass casino for dinner at their Asian place, and got to our rental around 7:30. Settled in and then walked over to the 4th street area which had restaurants/bars and shops etc. We went to a brewery that had a 12 beer flight! Holy moly lol. The beer was ok, it had a weird mouth feel to it. Stopped into a bar that was having Geeks Who Drink trivia, helped out some strangers on a few questions before moving on to a “goth” place, Surly Wench (I think) and Che’s Lounge, who advertised a bloody mary on their sign, so I had to try it (not bad!).

Thursday was our free day in Tucson so we drove out to Biosphere2. I thought it would be pretty neat to see, and a place not many other people I know will ever go to. I honestly don’t know much about it, I just remember it being in the news ages ago. It was cool, J thought it was creepy. It is being used now by University of Arizona for climate experiments, no more locking humans in for years haha. We finished there and still had time and daylight, so we drove to the Desert Museum. We only had an hour to spend there before they closed, so we didn’t get to take full advantage of everything there was to see but that was ok. The museum is all outdoors in the desert, and has animal exhibits and info on the plants and environment. It was really really nice, good views of the area, etc. Drove back into Tucson stopping at a roadside pull off to take some photos during sunset, got dinner at the oldest Mexican restaurant in the country, and hit a few bars again before bed.

Friday was the Titan Missile Museum tour. We elected for the 4 hour “Top to Bottom” tour, which took you to all 8 levels of the silo, control room, living quarters, etc. There were 5 of us on the tour with 2 retired Air Force tour guides. I have been trying not to use the words “amazing” or “awesome” in daily life so much anymore, unless something is truly amazing and awesome, because they are so over used, but the missile silo tour was amazing and awesome. The tour was really fantastic, the guides were really knowledgeable and the tour was super thorough, explaining every piece of machinery used to operate the missile and silo, what it was like to work there, how things were created etc. It was great. You get to “launch the missile” and everything! haha. The missile that is in the silo isn’t the original, which was dismantled and removed, but a training missile that everyone learned on years ago. So of course, there is no warhead, and no danger. There were no engines at the bottom anymore either. The thing is massive and it’s amazing to think of what the military accomplished with 1960s technology. It’s really hard to believe at times. Now I feel like with all the technology we have the system would be so over complicated and fraught with problems, where the old tech that was a lot of manual or mechanical parts would be replaced with computer systems that’d have issues. It was super cool, so glad we paid the money for the longer tour. Highly recommend it.

Pictures from Tucson

After the tour we drove back to Phoenix for the rest of the trip. We were going to stop at this ostrich farm where you could feed them, and that had something called a “goat penthouse” !!! as recommended by Rebecca who I met on a NIN tour, but it had started to storm pretty badly. Because every vacation we take, it rains. There was a ton of dust being blown around, plus rain and lightning, so we had to pass. We also had to pass on the domes of Casa Grande, these weird abandoned dome structures Rebecca also mentioned. We got to our place in Scottsdale, but it was still storming, so we couldn’t really walk anywhere. Turned out to be ok, because we weren’t quite within walking distance of what I’d call “downtown” Old Town Scottsdale. We tried some beer at another brewery before dinner and walking around Old Town a bit.

Saturday we got up early again to take the behind the scenes tour of Taliesin West – Frank Lloyd Wright’s western “camp” complex and school. J had been there before, but he still enjoyed it. It was another several hour tour that got to see more of the complex than the other regular tours. The complex is pretty incredible and very beautiful. It’s the first FLW building I’ve toured, even though we have Darwin Martin House right here in Buffalo. Even though his intent was the “compress and release” feeling of being closed in before walking into a big space, it feels a bit too claustrophobic to me. It was a great tour, and they even give you some snacks and beverages while one of FLW’s original Taliesin students talked to the group.

The weather was pretty nice in the morning, but once we left and headed to brunch it got crap and poured and poured. Cuz as I said, vacation = rain. After brunch we went out to another Rebecca recommended sites, Goldfield mining town. It’s not a true abandoned mining town, though it really was a mine, but it was all rebuilt and is a tourist trappy little place. General stores, a brothel, a saloon, a train…that kind of stuff. We did go on the little mine tour, which was meh, and the mystery house that is always fun even if you know the story isn’t real. It’s so disorienting! Rebecca told us to go because the saloon’s porch has a great view of the Superstition mountains, so we stopped there for a bit and had some drinks, took some photos as the sun set and watched another storm roll into the desert.

After Goldfield we went back to Phoenix to The Duce, this crazy bar that had a boxing ring, and corn hole, and shuffle board, and a soda counter, and trailer serving food, and insanely overpriced clothing, and ping pong, and…yeah. Tons of stuff. It was on a list of things to do in Phoenix I found, but turns out it was also on Diners Drive-ins and Dives. It was neat and fun, kicked J’s ass at corn hole, but it was so expensive. Around the corner was Alice Cooperstown so we stopped in there to check it out before heading back to Scottsdale.

Sunday was Taco Fest!! We did VIP which got us 10 tacos and 5 drinks in the VIP tent, private bathrooms, etc. It was a pretty big festival, lots of restaurants participating in a big area, so it didn’t feel super cramped like Soup Fest in the convention center here. We picked Sunday because there was a chihuahua beauty contest LOL. It was cute, 18 dogs dressed up in costumes. The 3 legged dog won, even though the one dressed like a pinata was cuter. We sat in on a tequila seminar, and a bartender flare contest, which was good because it started to rain…of course. After that, a lot of places were closing up, and a bad storm was coming in so we stuffed ourselves with our last few tacos before heading back to our place. The tacos were all pretty good, a few better than the rest. In general all the mexican food we had was fairly mild. The only hot stuff was the salsas on offer, J trying a habenero one that was ridiculous. It was a good delicious time!

Monday was another free day, so we ended up going to Papago Park to climb the Hole in the Rock outcropping and to visit the zoo. The zoo was way bigger than Buffalo, we seriously walked so much. Lots of different animals to see, and I even got to see lizards in the wild haha. It was one of my goals of the trip. Pretty nice zoo I’d say. Good times.

Headed home Tuesday. It was raining. haha. Lots of fun, saw lots of stuff, ate lots of tacos.

Pictures from Phoenix

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Vegas Jan 16-21

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Wedding time!!

Jason and I headed out to Vegas a few days early to have some fun and go to Adrienne’s wedding. We got in very early on Wednesday, did a few errands, before hitting up Gold and Silver Pawn, the pawn shop from the History Channel show Pawn Stars. I’ve seen the show, but I don’t regularly watch it, so I was surprised at how small the store was. It was very busy, but Phil wanted me to get him a silver coin with the Old Man on it, so I picked one up. The guy said the Old Man was there and could sign it, so we went to cash out, but ended up missing the Old Man so no autograph. They made an announcement that the store had to be cleared out because they were about to film a new scene for Pawn Stars, and since we didn’t have anything to look at anyway, we headed out. I guess you can’t be there during filming, and the guys on the show are only there when it’s a filming day…so we checked into the El Cortez Cabana Suites earlier than I thought we’d be able to, and took a nap. Everyone familiar with Vegas was like why would you stay there? Cuz it’s fun, retro, downtown, and cheap. I know the casino is a small old local joint, but it was more than adequate for playing, and the room was really nice. Not sure what the normal hotel rooms are like, but the Cabana Suites were great. Headed out after the nap for dinner at a Mexican place Jason always would drive by on Main, which was tasty, and started the “skuffle” with all the various match play and free slot play coupons Jason had gotten from the Las Vegas Advisor and American Casino guide. It didn’t go too well for me, and I didn’t end up with any free money from the coupons, but he did ok. Headed to the strip to Bill’s for kareoke for a few hours before heading to Ellis island to eat, then back downtown.

Thursday I had gotten us tickets to the Neon Boneyard. It was a place I had wanted to go on all my previous trips but never got to. They’ve got a new building and set up, and offer hour tours of the various old signs that have been donated to them, but not yet restored. It was really cool, but I like that kind of thing. From there we headed out to see Adrienne and Tom’s new house, caught dinner with them, before going for some more “skuffling” at various off strip casinos. It went much better this time. I won about $80, ended up back at Ellis Island with the coupons, so we ate there again, $7.99 steak dinner! Then we played mechanical slot machine horse racing for 2 hours lol.

Eric arrived Friday, so we after we got up we met up with him to do our last “skuffling” in some shady North Vegas casinos. Some of the coupons Jason couldn’t use, as he was not new members at these places, so Eric got to use them and make a few bucks. Friday night was a little bachelorette evening for Adrienne, starting with dinner at 4 Queens, and a few drinks at Don’t Tell Mama piano bar downtown. The boys were on their own for a few hours but I think they had good fun. When Adrienne and her “normal hours” teacher friends left for the night, I walked around a bit with her to-be in-laws but it seemed like they were going to go to a club, so I said my goodbyes and went to find Jason and Eric, who were playing coin op horses again haha. As it turns out, explorer friend Chris was in town with the Air Force, so he met us there for a bit. We ended up back at El Cortez, played some pai gow for a bit before calling it a night.

Saturday was the wedding rehearsal and luncheon at Sunset Station, at noon, then I had to take the rental car back to the airport. Thankfully Eric picked me up there, we went back to El Cortez to get Jason out of bed, then down to the strip for the night. Caught some dinner at the PBR Rock Bar before heading to the Orleans for the Las Vegas Wranglers hockey game. Had to prepare for the NHL season somehow! And it was something Jason has always wanted to do while in Vegas. They lost the game, but it was fun. After that, back to Ellis Island for the 3rd night for some kareoke. Chris met us out again, we hung out there for the rest of the night. Eric got to sing, it took forever though because it was so busy. Chris had talked me into doing Salt n Pepa’s “Shoop”, but (thankfully) we never got called before we turned in for the night. That didn’t stop us from singing in the car on the way back downtown though 🙂

Sunday was wedding day. Adrienne picked me up early in the morning to go to her hotel, got to watch some of the Sabres game before catching lunch, and the hair and make up people arriving. I didn’t end up getting my hair done, since I don’t have much and Adrienne liked it the way I do it anyway. Off to the banquet hall to change, get pics done, and wait for the ceremony. Adrienne looked super pretty, her dress was so nice, and she was super happy! It was nice and short, given that it was a bit chilly outside, but it was perfect for them. It was a great night. After the reception, Jason, Eric and I headed to the Goretorium, a horror movie haunted house and bar on the strip, another place I wanted to go. We had a drink there before going back to….Ellis Island. The intent was more kareoke but I was hungry so we ate first, and by the end, we were all kinda done so we just headed back to the El Cortez. Jason went out to play a bit more, but Eric and I were done for.

Check out was monday at noon, which was a tad too early, but what are you going to do. Jason and I dragged around downtown that afternoon, getting lunch at the Mob Bar, wandering around, betting on the Sabres, playing a bit of Let it Ride (no idea how he talked me into that one, but i ended up hitting a full house, though I didn’t play the 3 card bonus), and finding the Sabres game on tv at the Golden Nugget. We caught dinner at a pub on Freemont, played a bit more at El Cortez before heading to the airport. A mighty long journey home, since we had a 4 hour layover in Newark, but we made it. Exhausted, but in one piece.

It was a great trip. Had a lot of fun, the wedding was great, it was awesome to get to hang out with Eric again for more than a few hours at a show. Now I have no vacation time scheduled until September, which was kind of a bad move on my part I just realized haha. I should have taken Memorial Day like I usually do, but I saved my 4th week for whatever comes up. Not that I have any money for another trip but still…Sept seems so far away!

Vegas Photos

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New Orleans Psychic

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oh yeah. there were free psychic’s at the witches ball, so i had my cards read. she said that when good things happen to me i feel like i don’t deserve it, and that i should know that i do deserve good things. then she said 4 months from now i’m going to have a de ja vu moment, where something is going to happen that has happened to me before, and i need to be aware of it, and do the opposite of what i did in the past. also someone from a past life is going to turn up and change my life around, in a good way. they are going to be inspiring of creativity, and be my new best friend (to which jason said, he was going to be jealous of my new best friend, and they lady said no he wouldn’t be, because it would be someone he connects with from a past life as well), and it was a non sexual connection. it will be a girl who is younger than me. and she said i need water around me, i need to drink more water, and if i’m feeling down, i can turn on animal planet and watch the whales or whatever haha.

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new orleans!

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i originally had vacation time scheduled in August, but with nothing to do and no one to go with, I rescheduled to the week before Halloween so I could go somewhere with Jason and Susan, and that place turned out to be New Orleans. Having been there 10 years ago, and not really having much desire to ever go back, I was sorta meh when we decided to go there. But I thought, maybe now, knowing more of the things I like to do, and not being a poor recently graduated from college girl, maybe it would be a better time. And that’s how it turned out.

We flew in fairly early on Wednesday, and our apartment that we rented was not quite clean and ready for us, so we dropped off our luggage and headed out for lunch at a nearby tapas place called Baru. I had found it on a quick google search a few days before departure, and the apartment owner also recommended it, so we figured it was a good bet. It was quite good, Susan and I had something called arepas, which were stuffed cornbread sandwiches sorta, and Jason had a jerk chicken burrito. After lunch we took a walk down Magazine St, sorta looking for a grocery store, but also just killing time. Not realizing at the time, even though I had it mapped, we walked by Trent’s former studio, Nothing Records, twice, and stopped at a bar called The Brothers Three, which was practically next door haha. Back to the apartment so Jason and I could take a nap, since we worked and didn’t sleep the night before, then their friend Justin came over so we could go out to dinner. We ended up walking the other way down Magazine St to a place I had mapped, and which had been on Diners Dive and Drive Ins (is that what the show is called?), called Joey-Ks. Tried some gumbo, and red beans and rice which they are famous for. Pretty good even though the gumbo had shrimp in it. From there we headed down to the French Quarter, first to a bar called the Burgundy Bar which Jason had wanted to go to, but appeared to be having a private party, so we wandered til we got to the Old Absinthe Bar for an absinthe frappe. Absinthe is just as wretched as I remember. Walked around Bourbon St more, to a place called Sing Sing’s that had a band getting ready to play, and hung out there for a while. Susan, being someone who sleeps normally unlike Jason and I, was exhausted, so Justin took her back to the condo and came back to the bar with us for the rest of the night. Justin and I did almost lose Jason when he left the bar to buy cigars. Since there are no open container laws in NOLA, we followed after him but he had gone the wrong way, so we waited at the cigar store til he found it haha.

Thursday we got a late breakfast at a near by diner called Slim Goodies, and then some yummy gelato at Sucre. We walked around the garden district, to see Trent’s old house, and attempted to go to Lafayette Cemetery No 1, but it closed at 2:30. Justin met us out again and took us to City Park, where we went to the NOLA Museum of Art. It was a nice collection, but we didn’t have time to go to the sculpture park outside. We walked back to Justin’s and went out to dinner at a bbq place called Squeal. It happened to be down the street from a bar I had mapped out as a local music venue called the Maple Leaf Bar. However being that it was only after dinner time, the band wasn’t going on until 10, we had a lot of time to kill and got tired of waiting, so we ended up going back to Magazine St to Le Bon Temps Roule, who also was having a brass band called Soul Rebels. Susan couldn’t make it that late again, so she went back to the apartment, Jason and I stopped in the Brothers Three bar again (which we dubbed grandma or grandpa’s basement, because that’s totally what it felt like), before heading back to see the band. We watched one set before heading out, there is only so much trumpet I can handle at one time LOL. They were really good though and the place was packed with people.

Friday we had booked a tour of the St Louis Cemetery No 1, so Justin picked us up and we headed out. This cemetery is one of the ones that had been in the DANGER area of the 2002 danger map (which I forgot to bring!!), and thus was someplace I hadn’t been 10 years ago. The tour guide was pretty good, lots of personal stories put in, and it was a pretty nice tour. It was super hot though, high 80s, lots of sun. The tour began and ended in the French Quarter, so for lunch we went to Stanley’s in Jackson Square, as recommended by our friend Jenn. After we walked around Jackson Square, grabbed a quick beer at Jax Brewery (which isn’t actually a brewery anymore, just a bar restaurant, which was kinda a bummer), and looked at the river, which I hadn’t actually seen last time I was there. Checked out a few voodoo shops before heading back to the apartment to rest. Susan was having leg issues and needed to ice them a bit, and Jason wanted to get a fleur de lis tattoo, so I went with him to a shop we had found down the street. He kept trying to get me to get a matching one, but I just couldn’t commit haha. For dinner we went down to Frenchman St, which was recommended to us as where locals go hang out, instead of Bourbon St. We ate at Three Muses, another tapas place that has bands every night, though this night was not local music, but a group from Brazil playing Brazilian music. Not quite what we were looking for, but the food was really good. We left there and went to the Spotted Cat Music Club to listen to the band there…it might have been a brass band, I can’t remember. From there, down the street to the Apple Barrel Bar, which had a blues rock band playing who I thought were pretty good. Oh somewhere on the street was the Frenchman Art Market, so we looked at what the artists and vendors had to offer, and I bought a paper machier skull, and a necklace for Jenn for Christmas. Meanwhile the temperature had dropped from 80 whatever during the day to 50 something, and super windy. I wasn’t quite prepared for that and was freezing haha. So next was Melange speakeasy (thank god for facebook check-ins, cuz I don’t even remember this place), then VASO New Orleans Ultra Bar, which is I think where Susan left us, and the bar tender ended up throwing out my bag of stuff from the art market. We left, I realized I didn’t have my bag, and went back to get it and it was already gone. It wasn’t a long time we had been gone, but they claimed they thought it was trash and threw it out. We asked them to get it, and they said the garbage had just been taken out. We offered to look for it ourselves and they said no, so I think they just stole it. Cuz even though the skull was wrapped in newspaper, the free print the same artist had given me was not, and the necklace was in a blue mesh bag, clearly not trash. Ugh. So anyway, Susan had gone back to the apartment for the night, and Jason and I wandered around, ending back at Bourbon St, for a very late night. I don’t think we got home til 6am, oops.

Saturday Jason slept all day, so Susan and I left him at the apartment and went out to the French Quarter to go to the Pharmacy Museum (which unfortunately was closed for a wedding), and the French Market for a bit of shopping and food. Saturday night was the Witches Ball. Jason had found out about it about a week before we left, and it was quite expensive, but I figured you don’t go to New Orleans at Halloween and not go to a fancy costume ball. And it’s really organized by witches. It was at a fancy mansion on St Charles, and it was unfortunate that it was so cold out, because their performances and ritual were held outside, and it was just far too cold for Susan and I to be out there in our little corsets and skirts. The party was not really what I expected, it was pretty serious and calm, but I figure the high price doesn’t lend itself to a bunch of young people just there to get trashed, which is probably a good thing. There were so many amazing costumes and dresses. The open bar was top shelf liquor, but even after all my drinks, I wasn’t buzzed or anything. Can’t say the same for Susan who was feeling pretty good, and had to go back to the apartment. Jason and I went down to Bourbon St to the after party at some Tropical theme bar, which was just kinda eh, but we talked to some other people from the Ball, and sat on the balcony and people watched all the costumed folk on Bourbon. It was a bitch to get a cab (Susan ended up walking back to the apartment, Jason and I walked forever to get a cab to the Quarter), so we had an earlier night than the one before, only cuz we knew it’d take so damn long to get a ride back to Magazine.

Sunday Jason slept all day again, so Susan and I left him again, and went shopping up and down Magazine Street. There are lots of fancy stores and antique shops, but we didn’t buy much (they were spendy shops). Managed to get Jason out of bed for dinner, which was down Magazine again, at Juan’s Flying Burrito, which was super yummy. That night we cashed in the groupon I had bought to see the Hot 8 Brass Band at a place called the Howling Wolf Den with Justin before having an early night. The intent was to get up early on Monday to check out of the apartment, and head down to the Quarter for the last of acting touristy. Again, it was a bitch to get a cab on Monday, so we ended up walking through the garden district toward St Charles, which allowed us to stop by Lafayette Cemetery after all. Finally found a cab on St Charles and headed to Cafe du Monde for beignets, stopped into St Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square (which is nice, but by the standards set by all the other churches I’ve been to on travels, it’s not really fancy or special), visited the Ursuline Convent, and just walked around to more voodoo shops, and to find the absinthe decanter I had seen in a shop window (which we did find, and I did buy, it’s being shipped this week!!). Lunch was at a place called Fiorella’s Cafe which was recommended by a lady in the Voodoo museum (which we didn’t go in). By then it was time to head back to the apartment to get our bags, and wait for our ride to the airport….which never came. I had bought a groupon for roundtrip limo service, which ended up not being a limo, and ended up having a ton of issues with. I called to find out where he was, he was in traffic and didn’t know how long it would take to get us, so we were advised to call a cab. It was a little nerve wracking, there was a lot of traffic, but we made it in time and got to Atlanta. We knew we had a good chance of not getting home because of hurricane Sandy, and indeed our flight from Atl to Buffalo was canceled. We were rebooked on a Tues morning flight, but given the uncertainty of the hurricane, we didn’t know if that would end up getting canceled as well, and we needed to get home. So we asked to get on a flight that night to Detroit, where we rented a car, stayed the night with Uncle Ed and Aunt Laurice, and then we drove home on Tuesday. Unfortunately, we had to go the long way around Lake Erie, since there was no reason for me to have my passport on this trip, and thus we couldn’t go through Canada. We finally got home around 4, a nice 7 hour drive. Thankfully even though we were still driving through the “hurricane”, the wind and rain weren’t all that bad.

Had great fun, ate lots of good food, drank a whole lot, good music and good company. I enjoyed the city much more this time than last time, it didn’t smell as bad, and it wasn’t as hot haha. Though I do wish the temperature hadn’t dropped SO much.

New Orleans Photos

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Boston part 2

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Jason and I headed back to Boston to stay with his sister because he had gotten tickets to see 2 Amanda Palmer events by donating to her kickstarter album campaign. So we left work super early Tuesday, to try to sleep before catching the red eye, but that didn’t work well so once we got to his sister’s apartment we went back to bed for a few hours. Caught a late lunch at Red Bones because he needed to succeed at eating the jamaican jerk beef sandwich which defeated him back in May hahaha (and he was successful this time!) Made a few stops in some stores, then off to the Middle East for the show.

The first night was a special VIP event for kickstarter supporters who donated at a certain (high) level. It was more of an artsy thing, featuring an art show of work Amanda had commissioned, or called for, for her album. She said usually the art is displayed in the same location as the performance, but at this place the art had to be in a different room of the restaurant upstairs, and the show was in the performance venue downstairs. And the show was not really a traditional rock show, more performance art kind of thing. She introduced a guy from her band, and he played an orchestral piece with some other string players. Then a guy named Walter Sikert played one song, and then Amanda. It was her, and the first guy who played, and another guy from her band, just with a banjo and mandolin or something, and she had a key-tar that she played a few times, and a knife….yeah. So it was just the 3 of them on the floor, no mics, no amps, with people sitting on the floor around them, and other standing behind. If there were 150 people there, that’d be high. It was small and intimate and kinda really great. They played a handful of new songs, a cover of Nirvana’s “Polly”, and probably old stuff…I don’t really know, because I don’t know any of her work other than what was played with Dresden Dolls when they opened for NIN in 2005. But yeah, she is definitely a performer and this small thing was really neat to see. Oh, everyone there got a gift bag with stuff in it, and each one had a different used book picked out by Amanda (or possibly her husband, Neil Gaiman, who I think is the real reason Jason donated to Amanda, cuz he really isn’t a fan of her haha). My bag contained John Irving’s A Widow for One Year…ok! and a folding pocket comb, which I’m pretty sure I also got in a package from Chuck Palahniuk, an adult sized eye mask, and a few stickers. I can’t remember Jason’s book, but he also got a purple crayola marker.

Our 2nd day brought lunch in Harvard area, so we could be near the glasses place Jason ordered new frames at, then we headed to the Institute of Contemporary Art. I had seen an ad in the subway for their current exhibit which looked neat, and I/we hadn’t been there before. It is a small museum, but it was a good interesting collection of modern art that didn’t make me mad, which is hard to do haha. Our next destination was Newbury St so Jason could get some shoes, but we went a round about way that included walking through Boston Common where it was ridiculously hot, then going down the wrong street in the wrong direction, and finally having to break out google maps to figure it out LOL. But we made it, he got shoes, then back to his sister’s to get ready for the 2nd show, and grab dinner with her.

The 2nd show was a regular concert that was open to the public and sold out (venue capacity was like, 567, so still a small show), but it was still part of the kickstarter rewards Jason got. It was ridiculously hot and uncomfortable in there, and Amanda wasn’t going to go on until 10:30, so it was a bit unpleasant, and we were stupid tired from being out in the heat all day. Eventually we moved from the bench we claimed on the side of the room, to stand in the back in front of a large fan, which was much much better. So there were 3 openers, someone maybe called Jaggery, the singer lives with Amanda. When she wasn’t screeching she had a nice voice, but good lord, the screeching was so ear pain-y. Next up was someone else who lives with Amanda, who is a piano composer and played one of his pieces. Then Walter Sickert played a full 30 minutes set, and he has potential. Going to have to look him up. Then it was Amanda, backed by her full band, the Grand Theft Orchestra. They played nearly 2 hours, and included 2 Dresden Dolls songs I recognized from 05. Again, she puts on a great performance, though it was different from the night before, and not being a fan, 2 hours might have been a bit long. But it was enjoyable and I’m super glad Jason took me with him. I don’t think I could ever listen to a full album of Amanda’s work, but she is definitely entertaining.

Bars close at 1 or 2am in Boston, depending on something we don’t know, so we caught a cab from the Middle East, and went to a bar we had passed on the bus that I was like “we must go there!” and happened to be open until 2, called People’s Republik. Communist bars yay! Grabbed a drink there before they closed and we headed back to the apartment for the night. Early wake up this morning, to head to the airport to come home, and my cab fare was $50, only he didn’t take credit cards and I only had $45 cash. oh well LOL. Guess I didn’t have to pay for his tolls, and he didn’t get a tip. So sad. Jason thinks $50 was too high anyway so….I win. Of course, my flight was delayed and I didn’t bother to check before I got the cab, so I had an extra hour to kill at Logan by myself. But it was no big deal (especially considering how long we sat at the airport when we went to Boston in May).

Great trip, albeit short, but it’s always nice to get away for a few days.

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london august 19-24

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I made the last minute (a week’s advance notice) decision to go to London for my week off of work. I kinda stressed out about it during that week between booking the flight and leaving, but as soon as I got to the airport I felt better (as I expected). I was flying through Detroit, and I had a short connection scheduled, only 55 minutes. So when the plane we were taking to Detroit hadn’t left Detroit until after they were supposed to already have landed in Buffalo I started to get nervous. The gate agent assured us we’d land at 9, with 40 minutes to make the connection. Except that we didn’t leave until 8:30, landing in Detroit at 9:35…my connection was 9:40. I thought for sure I was missing that flight, and even if I ran and made it, certainly my luggage wouldn’t make it. So I ran off the plane, ran to the other terminal, heard the final boarding call, ran to the gate, thought I was going to have a heart attack, but I made it. And landing in London, so did my luggage! Yes.

Upon landing at Heathrow, I had to make an expensive phone call to Verizon to make my phone work, which I’m not too happy about since the day before I had called global customer service twice to make sure the the phone would work, and then it didn’t work. Aggravating. Trained into Paddington, and since Pierre who I was staying with was at work, I decided to go off to the Freud Museum. The museum is in Freud’s house, which he moved to when his family had to escape from the Nazis. He only lived there for a year before he died, but his daughter Anna continued to live there the rest of her life. So the house featured all of the antiquities that Freud collected (which I had no idea he was interested in), his famous couch in his office, and other historical artifacts. It’s preserved just as it was when he lived there, and as Anna lived there. It’s small (it is just a house afterall) but it was very neat to see. Trained back to Paddington to meet Pierre, and off to his flat. Even though I was super tired from jet lag, we went out into the city anyway, walking around forever, got dinner at a pub, and back home for the night.

Saturday, the plan was to train out to spend time with Glen and Anna and the kids in Henley-on-Thames. Glen picked me up in Reading, and we tried to go by these old abbey ruins in town, which was closed (and Glen didn’t know why). So we headed off to Stonehenge, about an hour away. Unfortunately by the time we got there it was pouring, but that’s ok, it’s just rain. It just makes it difficult to manage an umbrella and cameras etc :). What to say about it? Everyone knows what it is, it’s definitely a weird sight to see when you turn on the road and see it on the hill. It’s cool to see it in person. While you can’t walk around the stones anymore, there is a circular walkway all the way around it, and you actually get much closer to it than I thought from other people talking about it. So it was neat. After the first walkaround the rain slowed, so we went around again before heading out for Henley. The rain cleared up into a nice day, so we walked into town from their house, went to a brewery in town which was great, and grabbed dinner at a pub. Yummy chili. I think I was still a bit jet lagged, and even though I was hungry, I just couldn’t eat very much of it. It was great to see the Lamberts again, the town is so cute, I could definitely live there.

Sunday was back into London for the Harry Potter Walking tour. It started in Leicester Square, and headed out to places in London that were either inspirations for things in the book, or actual filming locations. I think we saw the inspiration for Diagon Alley, Leadenhall Market which was the filming location for Diagon Alley, 2 different filming locations for the Leaky Cauldron (in Leadenhall Market for movie 1, a flower shop entrance for movie 3). There was a boat ride on the Thames to Southwark, which was inspiration for Knockturn Alley, and it ended at King’s Cross station (does it need explanation haha). We didn’t see the filming location for Gringotts, because I guess it was not remotely close enough to walk to given the rest of the tour route. It was a good tour, you see a lot of London, but probably would have been more fun if I was not alone. After that I think I headed back to meet Pierre somewhere and we probably got food but I can’t remember now haha. I think that’s the day we walked around the Notting Hill area and Portobello Road.

Monday brought “tourist day”. I had bought the London Pass which garnered you free access or extra stuff at 55 places around London, including most of the major tourist sites. I did the math and it did save me a little bit of money, so after picking that up from the tourism office, my first stop was Westminster Abbey. Being across from Parliament, I did a quick photo thing on the bridge, and headed to the church. Even as a nonbeliever, these massive churches are awe inspiring. Just the work that went into them, it’s ridiculous. No one builds this kind of thing anymore. Very cool. They had a small exhibit of photos from the royal wedding too haha. Close by was my 2nd stop, the Churchill War Rooms. This was the underground complex that was turned into Churchill’s headquarters during WWII, with the cabinet room, living quarters for all the important members, including Churchill and his wife, and other staff. Very interesting to see, and find out what it was like to be there during the war and the Blitz. Definitely recommended. Finishing up there, I headed to the Tower of London. Thankfully it was a nice day, because it’s a lot of outside walking, inside the walls, between the buildings etc. It was nice to see. I initially had no interest in seeing the Crown Jewels, there was a stupid long line outside the building, and there were a few more things to see before they closed so I skipped it. But after seeing the rest, and still having 20 min or so before close, I went anyway. The line was pretty quick moving, so it was ok. The jewels though…they look fake. And I dunno, just…whatever. They’re jewels.

Grabbed some food at a shop outside the tower, and had a little picnic. I thought the Tower Bridge Experience was open until 6, so I ran over there to try to fit that in, but turns out they closed at 5:30. Damnit, if I hadn’t eaten I’d have made it!

Tuesday it was rainy, which made it a good time for “museum day”. Since I missed the Tower Bridge the day before, that was my first stop. You get to go up the one tower, walk across to the other, and then down into the Victorian engine room, which used to run the bridge. They are doing construction on the walkways at the moment, so only one of the two was open but that’s ok. The engine room was super cool, well preserved steam engines, and explanations of how they worked to lift and lower the bridge.

Next was the Victoria and Albert museum. Not originally on my plan of things to visit, both Pierre and Glen and Anna recommended it, so I took their advice. It’s a huge art museum, which I found a bit overwhelming and confusing – there was no easy way to walk through the exhibits and see them all. I don’t think I saw everything in the 2.5 hours I was there, but that’s ok, I still saw a ton. It is very nice, lots of good stuff. From there, was the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons. In short, it’s the Mutter Museum of London…lots of stuff in jars. Tons of stuff in jars, and then more stuff in jars. Awesome! Across the park from that was the Sloane museum, also on my list but of course by the time I got there, they were closing in 5 minutes, so I missed it.

The annoying thing about London is everything is closed by 6, so on my list of things to do I didn’t end up at the National Gallery, or Portrait Gallery, didn’t get to the Chislelhurst caves, or the Old Operating Theatre. If things were, at least, open until 8 I think I could have gotten everything in. Oh well.

Wednesday was departure day, and it started off terribly. Pierre had given me the key to his outside door, so I could leave my luggage in the hall and go out before my flight. Except that somehow without leaving the apartment from 9pm previously, the key disappeared. I looked everywhere, was panicing, unpacked all my stuff, checked outside, the key was no where to be found. He said not to worry about it and he’d figure it out, except he posted later on on facebook that he had to pay 115 pounds on a locksmith, so now I feel terrible. Ug. There was nothing I could do, though, so I took my luggage off into the city again and went to the Tate Modern. I had been there last trip in 07 but only for about an hour, so it deserved another visit. Went through the whole museum, except the Miro exhibit (no time, and you had to buy tickets), grabbed some lunch, and headed back out to Heathrow.

The flight to JFK was uneventful, and we were actually an hour early because we got off the ground very quickly in London. That left even more time for me to sit around in JFK waiting for my flight to Buffalo, but what are you gonna do. Messing with my phone, I got a severe storm warning notice for Buffalo for the exact time I’d be flying in, awesome. The flight wasn’t delayed due to the storm, but as we got closer to Buffalo you could see the crazy lightning. The pilot came on to say we were 10 minutes away but we were going to have to circle around a bit wherever we were, and maybe we were going to land in Rochester or Syracuse instead. Great. I guess the storm had moved away enough from the airport, that we would be able to land, but that meant flying through the storm, and wow was that unpleasant. Constant lightning in the clouds, turbulence, but we made it through (obviously), and were able to land. We were delayed on the ground though, as since it was still raining and there was still lightning despite the main storm passing, the ground crew couldn’t be out working to bring us into the gate. It wasn’t too long though, and with all that we were still on time.

The end. ha.

London Photos

Posted in: International Vacations, Vacations \ Tagged: , ,

ohio road trip

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Spent 3 days driving around Ohio and sightseeing, in my strange way, with Alex for my first vacation of the year. Headed out early Monday for the first stop, Youngstown Ohio. Youngstown is your typical dying rust belt city. Sean had given me a heads up on a few potential exploration locations, and the first stop was the most promising of them – Republic Rubber. Wow is this place wide open. A handful of buildings, with not much, if any, machinery left inside, but your usual decay level and some interesting dumped debris (namely, a 1968 newspaper about Robert Kennedy’s assassination). Spent a few hours there, before heading out when Alex spotted someone that looked like a cop. After ducking aside and deciding what to do, we figured we’d risk it. Then I saw the cop car, ducked aside again. Went over a debris pile towards the street and thankfully the fence had fallen down, so we got out no problem. Sean later told us a cop had rolled up on him too and didn’t care they were on property. Oh well, even if we had know about Sean’s experience, I probably would have reacted the same.

The day was very hot, 93, we were mighty unprepared with no water, and we hadn’t eaten before getting to Republic, so after escaping we found a Chick fil A for lunch before checking out a few more bust locations. First was an old highschool that we bailed on because of cars parked around, and an old coal breaker that no longer exists. So it was off to Mansfield. We were already going to get into town much too late to visit the Mansfield Reformatory that day, but the 2 hour traffic jam because of an innocent looking car accident that closed all 3 lanes of the highway didn’t help. We went by the prison anyway, so pretty, then found a hotel and some food for the night.

Tuesday was the prison. They offer self guided tours Mon – Fri, closed Saturday, and 3 different guided tours on Sundays. Their website said no “professional photography” and no tripods were allowed on the self guided tours, but they offered a “photographer tour” for 4 hours for $150…no thanks. Stuck to the self guided tour and suffered through low light photo attempts with no tripod. There was no sign at the ticket area about the tripod thing, so maybe if I went again I’d try to bring it and see if anything was said.The lady did immediately ask if we were professionals upon seeing SLRs, but I assured here that couldn’t be further from the truth. Hopefully some photos turn out not blurry. The prison is designed more hospital like, with 2 cell block wings and a central admin/warden section, rather than something like Eastern State with it’s wheel and spoke design. It closed in 1990, and several movies have been filmed there, most famously the Shawshank Redemption, and (I was not aware) Air Force One. It is a pretty nice place, and I recommend stopping by for sure.

After a few hours at the prison, we started on our way to Columbus and Taco Trucks. Had a few issues with that – I had mapped out the 3 that Carolyn had gone to last year, but 2 were not present, and 1 didn’t open until 4:30. Arg. Ended up finding one after consulting the internet again, and stopped for lunch. I love Taco Trucks. Had an el pastor (think gyro but with pork only) burrito that was huge and delicious. I had wanted to go back to the 4:30 opening truck after our next stop, the zoo, but in the end we didn’t. The Columbus Zoo is pretty nice, no San Diego, but a decent size with a nice mix of animals (when they were present in their habitats, which apparently none of the various bears were). We only had about 2 hours before it closed, but it was really all the time we needed. It was way too hot to be walking around so much haha.

So then it was off to Cincinnati for the night, stopping for night shots of the Cincinnati Union Station (designed by BCT architects) before having a bit of an adventure trying to find someplace open to eat late (everything closes at 10 which seems super early to me, even if it was a Tuesday).

Wednesday was the other main reason for the trip (1st being Mansfield) – the Creation Museum in Kentucky…

Here is my fair review of the Creation Museum: It’s a pretty nice place, and very well done. Clearly a lot of money was spent, and it is not some half ass hack job like I sorta expected. It’s pretty large, with a large nice garden outside, and sorta lame petting zoo. And it was very busy. Oddly, they had 2 guys outside that looked like Troopers (but were probably only museum hired security) directing parking and pedestrian traffic, then I noticed a public safety vehicle, and once inside 2 more guards with a k-9 unit…really? Are they really threatened that they need all this security? What’s the dog for, to sniff out drugs or bombs? Is someone really going to suicide bomb them? I just was really surprised by it. They really play up the dinosaur aspect of the museum, which in reality should be pretty small – all based on the idea that god created everything, and noah saved 2 of every animal, thus humans lived with dinos and dinos were saved in the flood…It’s really not a big deal, but there are freaking dinosaurs everywhere.

So the exhibits are based on Genesis, (duh) the opinion that god created everything in the last 6000 years, and then all the “proof” from the bible and earth records to support this opinion. What surprised me was that they actually do sort of show both sides of the coin. They had info graphics with one side being “rational man’s thought” (aka science) and “god’s” on the other. So for example they’d have the time line of the universe being created millions of years ago, and it’s evolution to present day, vs the time line of god’s 7 days of creation (7 right? You’d think I’d know this after today lol). I don’t think I’m explaining it well, but they did show both sides of the issue. They probably did conveniently leave things out on the “rational” side of the coin, but…I respect that they had both sides, because I really didn’t expect it and it would have been very easy to not do it. There were some things I had issue with, just because I don’t think the conclusions they drew were valid from their premise, but I’m sure no one else is questioning it haha.

While the wax dummies were pretty bad, the exhibits were pretty professional, almost Disney-esque. There were 2 video presentations that we didn’t watch, and various short video clips that went along with each part of the exhibit. The museum was solely focused on creation and Genesis, and seemed to end abruptly because of it, with few references to Jesus, no real reference to the rest of Christianity, and surprisingly no effort to convert (maybe they think everyone there is already Christian). I actually didn’t find it to be a complete waste of time and money, it was interesting and entertaining. Though I think Alex was angered more than I was, I really wasn’t that angry haha. Just amused.

Here is my Atheist review of the Creation Museum: it’s sort of sad and upsetting that so many people were there, obviously religious people, believing everything that was shown and likely not questioning the “other side of the coin” that was presented. Some of it was very hilarious, like how obviously the wax statues of Isaiah, Moses and King David were made to look stereotypically Jewish, and all the talk about dinosaurs and humans living together. They just won’t let that go!! It’s so completely unimportant! Their attempts to show the scientific side of things was impressive, but I suspect altered or incomplete figuring that no one will question it. And the most important fault of all….the dinosaur with the saddle, because obviously humans rode dinosaurs, was only for children under 12 years old. Gah!

The gift shop was large, and filled with a ton of books…books I didn’t attempt to even look at, because I know those WOULD make me angry, where the museum did not. We walked around the gardens, which are pretty nice, for a bit but again, it was way too hot out lol. Once I get my pics done up I’ll post with commentary, but at this point, this is all I can really think of to say about it.

Headed home after that, deciding not to pursue any exploring in Cincinnati. A fairly easy but long drive home followed, and now I’ve got one more day of vacation left, then back to work. Time to find some food!

Ohio Photos

Posted in: US Vacations, Vacations \ Tagged: , ,