Pimms, Strawberries and Cream and grunting
As summer has finally arrived here (4 days of sun in a row!) in old
Blighty so has come the highlight of the British tennis season, Wimbledon.
Tickets are sold out months in advance but several hundred tickets are released each night for the following day's action. My buddy Pat was able to secure 2 tickets for Thursday for Centre Court; not too bad at all.
The day was full of sun and the tennis line up looked spectacular. We were fortunate to see Venus beat the UK #1, followed by local favourite (Scotsman?) Andy Murray destroy a hapless Belgian. Half the fun of Wimbledon is wandering around courts 3 and higher where you tend to be no more than a few feet from the players, it gives a totally different perspective on the speed of the game, size of the courts, and impressively sculpted physiques of the female players (scary really). Caught a bunch of former world #2 Tommy Haas' match, he would go on to get worked by Rafa on Saturday. Supported
perennially disappointing top US man James Blake look awful in losing his first set, decent in winning the second, before returning to form and crashing out of Wimbledon in the 2
nd round.
As Kirsten was not able to attend during the day I put the Wimbledon traditions on hold, so fingers crossed we'll get back next week for some
Pimm's and lemonade and strawberries and cream.
I am still aware that the Italy post has not yet been completed. I would like to promise a masterpiece but in reality it is a study in procrastination. Until then...
Fire up the Flux Capacitor
Back to the Future has been on the telly pretty consistently here over the past couple of weeks, so I figured what better way to catch-up on some long overdue posts (though not Italy, that one is still in the works - and really long).
Marathon #5. The 13
th of April was a day Kirsten had circled on the calendar for 3 months. She was entered into and had been training for the London Marathon. As the dutiful husband I was supporting her by extolling her virtue at the pub, sleeping in on weekends so that I would be well rested when she got back from her 10-15 mile runs, and generally ensuring that the yin/yang of our combined weight remained consistent as she shed pounds on her strict mileage regimen. For the first time (!) she actually trained for a marathon as opposed to the previous times in Philly or Boston when she decide to run as a spontaneous decision (I know, she's just not right in the head). Her goal was an unbelievable 3:40 and all her training was designed to achieve that. We spent the week before the marathon in Italy so she could run the Tuscan hills and focus on her target time. K's sister, Arden, flew in for the weekend and we organised a travelling contingent of supporters to follow Kirsten around the 26.2 mile course. Those hardy souls included Jon, Dina, Martyn, Christian (who got his own workout in), Bethany, Clair, Nick, and briefly Clara, Mike and
Bas. Arden and I set out early with an ambitious goal of seeing Kirsten at 5 spots along the course. The plan got scuppered almost from the start partly due to naive planning and partly due to poor public transport. While we managed to see the Masai Warriors at our 1st stop we missed Kirsten, and spent the next hour + playing catch-up. As if to compound the growing anger I felt the rain set in to really rub in the grim reality that I might not see her at any point during the race or best case scenario half way through. Due to the wonders of modern technology we did stay in contact as Kirsten kept calling us from her mobile to tell us where she was. So let's put this in perspective - here's this woman in the midst of a 26 mile run (8:30/mile pace) calling us with updates on how she was getting on and generally chatting!!! Truly a freak of nature.
After meeting up with the calming influence of Jon, Dina, Martyn and Christian we revised our plan and made it over to Canary Wharf to see Kirsten 2-3 times in the space of 30 minutes, finally we were getting somewhere and supporting our girl as she was on the back half of the marathon miles. The last time we saw her, a few miles from the finish, resulted from a true team effort. An all out sprint from the tube station down to the course just as Kirsten came by, at that point I am reasonably sure that we were all more winded than the woman who had already completed 22 miles.
From there we shot down to the finish line, or as near as we could get, to meet up with our triumphant marathoner, in a steadily increasing and cold downpour. We found her among the limping, bloody nippled and generally miserable looking masses. Kirsten was smiling and relaxed, if I hadn't seen her do the run myself I wouldn't have believed she had just run a marathon.
We bundled her up, covered her with umbrellas and headed home so she could take a well deserved shower. After a bit of a rest our friend
Stef hosted a post-marathon lunch at her recently opened, and fabulous, cafe on
Clapham Common - Schmidt's (plug!). It was a treat for all of us.
Jump ahead one month and it was off to the States for me to see the littlest one get his diploma. So off to the Big Easy, New Orleans, for a 3-day trip. Kirsten was excused from duty due to the cost of the flights and the quick turnaround, besides someone has to pay the bills. The trip was filled with the standard New Orleans fare - oysters,
Abita beer, seafood, Bourbon St. (
LaFitte's - Mark?) and the list goes on and on. Of course the reason I was there was to see young Mr.
Hennigan get his diploma - and get announced as
magna cum
laude (!!!) - at least there is one in the family. It was good to see the whole family, especially since none of them have made it over to visit in London as yet (ahem!). Other than that it was nice to be reminded of what that big bright warm thing in the sky is. But as it goes just as the body was getting adjusted to the time difference it was time to hop back on a plane, go transatlantic, land at
Gatwick and head straight into work...what a reward.
Watch this space, Italy is on its way.
Big shout out to TM and MA (and Publius), loyal readers even during the slow (very slow) times.
So we went to Switzerland...
...and it was closed.
Skipping a few updates (I know, I know), I'm going to catch-up by starting with our most recent trip and working backwards. Think of it as your own personal time machine.
So the K-
dawg really wanted to check out Switzerland to see what it was all about. We set about booking our trip and couldn't understand why there weren't any available hotel rooms in Geneva on Saturday. It was only after we came to terms with our UK-centric view of Europe that the answer hit us - Euro 2008. This is the quadrennial football (soccer) tournament held in Europe. The reason this major tournament (behind only the World Cup and possibly the Olympics) slipped our mind is that none of the island countries made this year's tourney; no England, no Wales, no Scotland and sadly no Republic of Ireland.
In the end we managed to find a room a few kilometers
outside of the city - in France. We rented a car anyway and spent our time cruising all over the southwest of Switzerland, the French speaking bit. It's a good thing the scenery, food and company were good because there was limited interaction with the locals since we couldn't find them.
On Saturday when we got in we popped over the border to our hotel to drop our stuff off and immediately set out for the other side of Lake Geneva to see what we could see. So back over the border we went and drove along the lake, destination -
Lausanne, for some eats. Unfortunately by the time we got there the lunch hour had passed so most places were closed; not to mention most stores shut for the day and most people apparently MIA. Lucky for us we found a pizza joint, just across from the train station, hey desperate times call for desperate measures. After lunch and carefully avoiding the horde of Turkish football fans (See
Galatasaray "Hell) we made our way to the spa town of
Yverdon-
les-
Bains. We figured we might as well drop into the baths and soak away what ailed us (still not sure what that is). Rolling up to the Central-Spa centre (without bathing suits or towels), I got my first chance to put my extensive French speaking capabilities to the test. After waiting in line I managed to get out something along the lines of do you sell bathing suits. Now you all know I am a physical specimen, but even I have my limits. Maybe it's because I'm an American or maybe it's just because I never miss an opportunity to mock those that are fond of wearing the ultimate in Euro men's beachwear - the banana hammock; but there was no way I was spending 40 euros to parade around in the man thong. So instead we had a coke and a coffee and plotted our next move. We popped around the lake to
Neuchatel, had a quick tour around, watched some of the Switzerland match and then back in the car to find a dinner spot in
Yverdon. Dinner was another adventure, why is it that in every French speaking country (except France) no one seems to speak any English, thanks god for pointing and elementary knowledge of "French words that might appear on a menu". We ended up having a lovely meal of steak
frites with only a few
miscommunications - Yes we would like whatever you just said (Bread). What a first day.
We knew Sunday was going to be a quiet day in Switzerland, I mean after Saturday what more could we expect from the quietest day in the known world? We checked out
Divonne which was the nearest town to our hotel in France. Surprise, surprise, we found a Sunday market with all manner of wonderful foods - cheese, breads, oysters, fruits, veg and on and on; it was a bit like Borough Market (as those that have been to visit us would know - ahem
Hennigans). On from
Divonne we crossed the border back into Switzerland, went through Geneva and then along the
southside of the lake into ... wait for it ... France, destination Evian. Sadly, Evian was closed and the only place we could find for lunch was a ... wait for it ... pizza joint. Lunch was alright but in a shout out to
Publius I had some
foie gras. On our way out of town we sampled some of the namesake wares of the town, a couple bottles of the finest water money can buy. Funny thing, it tasted just like the stuff you get in the states.
Hmmmm. Having enough of France we shot back over the border to Switzerland and what would be our fondest stop - Gruyeres - as in the cheese. Our first stop was the cheese making factory where we had a lovely audio tour (of a closed factory) hosted by an English speaking cow named Cherry,
riiiight. At least we got a sample of 3 different aged cheeses on our way out, I recommend the 10 month,
c'est magnifique. Next on our list was dinner and the finest fondue that Gruyere had to offer. The town is actually quite small but very quaint. It is clearly built on the tourist trade but was charming nonetheless. We hunkered down at a patio restaurant and caught a few rays (did I forget to mention this was the first sign of sun we'd seen?). With French skills honed to
perfection by this point we ordered up some Gruyere fondue with potatoes, bread, dried beef,
cornichons and cocktail onions (?) and stuffed our faces until all the cheese was gone; damn it was good.
Apres paying
l'addition it was back in the car, over the border, a night cap at the hotel bar while catching the last few minutes of Germany v. Poland. What a day. Only a half day more to enjoy our little trip to
Suisse.
Monday, Monday. We only had a half day left before our flight back to sunny London (it was actually 80+ and sunny). We did a whirlwind tour of some of the cities hot spots. The
Ile de Rousseau, St. Peter's Cathedral, the flower clock of the
Jardin Anglais and the tallest water fountain in the world. We had a nice little lunch at the Hotel
de Ville Cafe, which came off a recommendation from K's cousin Lindsay, and it was good. On our way back to the airport we had the coup
de grace, a chocolate and banana crepe on the lakeside. What a wonderful way to end the trip.
