Showing posts for Travel

• Thursday, 3 Jul 2025 10:04 pm

  London: Houses of Parliament

  On the train down a load of old folks get on the train. One of them is reading a book called “A Brief History of the Countryside in 100 Objects”, which sounds like the quintessential old person book.

  The train rolls into Kings Cross eventually and we disembark and wander down into the Underground. Whenever I come to London I marvel at how quickly I readopt the language of city living. We dive into the bowels of the city and board the Victoria Line to Oxford Circus.

  Back on the streets we weave through polyglot crowds towards Buckingham Palace. The palace is demure and the crowds outside are restless and wandering. We cross the street and snap a couple of pics of the Victoria Monument and then head down a treelined road past the Kings Guard Museum towards Westminster.

  

  In Westminster we find a row of three red-painted English phone boxes, at each of which is a queue some 50 people long waiting to take pictures with the phone box. I guess these phone boxes must be the most optimally-placed for tourist photography because the Elizabeth Tower of the Houses of Parliament is sort of in the background. I've always thought the most British phone boxes are the old BT cornet-labelled ones standing solitary at the foot of Cross Fell filled with forgotten books. But: NOT BRITISH ENUF. At one phone box, a 14-year-old tries on a series of modelesque facial expressions, shifting hipshot from one side to the other. At the next, a Buddhist in burgundy robes and sandals stands stockstill with the door of the phone box half-open, as if he's Buddhist Clark Kent or something.

  We wind through crowds past Westminster Hall and spot the visitors' entrance to the Houses of Parliament. There is no queue, no fanfare. No one seems to have noticed. I wander through the fences towards one of the security personnel. Behind them stands a man with an automatic rifle braced against his hip. I half expect him to raise his NATO-issue bullpup and start yelling at me. He doesn't.

  I ask the security guy whether there are any more tours of the House of Commons on today. He says no, but they’re currently debating and we can go in and watch if we want. Perks of being British. I duly shrug off my backpack for a security check and then we’re in the medieval Westmister Hall under the centuries-old roofs and standing on the spot where Charles I was marked for execution.

  

  

  I feel very much as if we’ve discovered a secret shortcut into the heart of British politics.

  Up past St. Stephen’s Porch and into St. Stephen’s Hall, where linger school groups on excursion and, at intervals, women standing with extraordinarily well-behaved dogs. (These dogs, as it turns out, have all won awards for one thing or another; non-award-winning dogs are not allowed in the Houses of Parliament.)

  We wait ten or fifteen minutes and then are ushered through the Central Hall (featuring: a Post Office!) into a series of corridors and up flights of stairs to the mezzanine supporting the public viewing area for the House of Commons. We render our bags unto a surprisingly sassy man in a morning suit and suddenly we’re in the House of Commons, looking down through a pane of plexiglas at a couple dozen Members of Parliament debating compensation for Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) women.

  My brief comments on the debate: the Tories presented better rhetorically, but I struggle to find sympathy for the economic cause of a group of 70-year-old women who benefitted directly from one of the strongest periods of economic growth in the history of Britain, and whose main complaint is that they couldn’t be bothered to read their own mail.

  This opinion, I suspect, wouldn't go over well with the half dozen WASPI women sitting two rows above us, who cry, "Hear hear!" when the Tories speak, and who cry "Shame shame!" when Labour speaks.

  A little ways down from the WASPI women, a couple of teenagers snap their fingers (i.e. like "oh snap" from circa 2006) when Torsten Bell says something spicy. The sassy man in the morning suit comes down out of nowhere and scolds them: "Stop doing that with your arm." The teenagers leave a couple of minutes later.

  

  From Parliament we wander down past Downing Street, where I'm disappointed to discover that Number 10 isn’t even visible from Whitehall Road. Then on to Charing Cross station and back into the depths of the earth for a ride up to Islington to check in to our lodging.

  

  Refreshed, we strike back out towards Pentonville (of the famous HMP) for dinner at Little Georgia on Barnsbury Road. What a fantastic little spot! I get a chkmeruli and Sam gets a bean stew; a bit of cake and a glass of dessert wine finish us off.

  We walk slowly back to the hotel via the Uniqlo and the Regent’s Canal and pass out at like 8:30 pm.

  

  London 2025 London Travel

• ---

  Monday, 27 May 2024 11:33 pm

  Florida, May 2024

  

  A whirlwind couple of days in Florida for my sister's engagement party: therefore a whirlwind blogpost to match.

  Wednesday: Terrific flight down on Virgin Atlantic, due in part to a mostly-empty plane and in part to VA's tendency to sweat the details (e.g.: an exhortation on the infotainment system to use the toilet before The Captain Illuminates the Fasten Seatbelt Sign Prior to Descent). Pick up a pickup from the rental place: the attendant in the multistory tells us to take whichever takes our fancy. A long drive up to Gainesville punctuated by (dubiously unpunctuated) Popeyes fried chicken.

  Thursday: breakfast at the International House of Pancakes (mostly sugar + HFCS) and a trip to Lowes followed by spectating my mom and sister planting new flowers in raised beds in the backyard. Sweaty work indeed! Hop in the pool for a swim and remain there for nearly 4 hours. Dusk descends on drinks with family, ending in sudden exhaustion: to bed.

  Friday: quiet morning listening to birds in hammocks (we're in the hammocks, not the birds). Off to Zaxby's: underwhelming, slightly nauseating. Start decorating for tomorrow's party; fill an arch of balloons with our breath. Feel woozy: back into the pool. Drop by REI for a cheeky browse and then get tacos with dad and his partner downtown. An old friend shows up in the evening and we catch up over: you guessed it more beers.

  

  

  Saturday: up early to run up and down the stadium steps at the University of Florida. I don't realise it at the time but this will be the most thorough calf workout I will have had in a long time. Back home, last-minute flower prep before our future brother-in-law's family arrives. It turns out that, as expected, they're wonderful folks, full of kindness and love and ingenuity. My sister fits right in with them, and I can't wait for them to be family. While away the afternoon in the pool, do some light packing, then zonk out at the end of a fruitful day.

  

  Sunday: back to Orlando, drop off the rental car, queue up for check-in. Delta does not live up to VA's standards. Short flight to Atlanta; watch Fargo. Faced with the prospect of a 7-hour connection, we take the MARTA into town and get an early dinner at Daddy D'z BBQ Joynt. It is heavenly: precisely the kind of food that I suspect British people lack the genes to make. Hobble on sore calves back to the airport for our flight back to Edinburgh.

  Monday: drive home. Flat tyre! Torrential rainstorms until the exact moment that we re-enter England, after which clear skies and sunshine. Don't read too much into it.

  Family Florida Travel

• ---

  Monday, 6 May 2024 12:02 pm

  Now

  Inspired by Rach Smith, who was in turn inspired by Derek Sivers, who has created the nownownow.com project to encourage others to join in.

  So a website with a link that says “now” goes to a page that tells you what this person is focused on at this point in their life. For short, we call it a “now page”.

  

  Anyway.

  Currently recovering from the Fellsman. I picked up some IT band pain that only occurs when I run. It's getting better, but slowly. On Friday I could only go about 2 km, but it's Monday now and I can do about 5.

  At the very beginning of June I'm running a leg of the Bob Graham Round with a friend of mine, so my main goal at the minute is just to relieve the knee pain enough to support him through it.

  I have a couple of other events after that: a sprint triathlon in Chantilly, France, and a half marathon here in East County Durham I'd also like to run a few fell races this summer, but I haven't signed up for any, just yet.

  We're traveling to the United States at the end of the month for my sister's engagement party. It's been about a year since we were last there and I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with family in the warm weather.

  Trying to make a final push on finishing the tiles downstairs, which project has turned into a saga spanning months and months. Next time I'm going to insist we just hire someone. We've got all of the grout down but we need to scrub and scrub and scrub to remove the residue that's stuck to the surface of the slates, which is a gruelling, manual job.

  

  

  Short week ahead.

  Running now Travel

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  Tuesday, 3 Oct 2023 1:45 pm

  Stockholm: Tuesday

  This is the sixth & final post in a multi-part series about our trip to Stockholm in fall 2023. All entries here.

  Nothing left to do in Stockholm but pack our things and head back to the airport. A final hotel breakfast, a final wheat cracker with cream cheese and honey, a final bowl of yogurt poured from a carton. We briefly consider trying to rig up our luggage somehow for a final ride to the Centralstation, but abandon the idea when it becomes apparent that it just ain't gonna fly.

  At the station I dodge between rivers of communters and grab a kanelbulle from an empty café. It looks exactly like what you'd expect from a café in a train station. We sit in the minimalist Arlanda Express waiting area and I munch on my bulle. There are solid birch tables scattered throughout the room and a little mobile coffee stand parked up between two tall plants I couldn't name. The overhead lighting is dim and very warm-coloured. As far as final experiences in Stockholm go, this one's alright.

  

  We board the train and rocket back to the airport. We've given ourselves plenty of time, but we already have our boarding passes (on our phones, natch), have no luggage to check, and security is a big empty room. We pass through a customs checkpoint and post up for the long wait for the plane. I purchase a final kanelbulle. It's not very good.

  

  Sweden Stockholm '23 Travel

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  Monday, 2 Oct 2023 11:00 pm

  Stockholm: Monday

  This is the fifth post in a multi-part series about our trip to Stockholm in fall 2023. All entries here.

  Up early for a final run in Stockholm: so far I'd explored north and west, so it was south-east for me on a morning I could only describe as brisk: chill, dry, a faint blue tinge to the air. Commuters on bicycles flying silently past, trailing chic scarves.

  Straight down to Hammarby sjö, a lake pretty much only in name, a series of marinas lining a shallow lagoon connected by canals north and west to the other watercourses of Stockholm. Lovely running through here: broad paved promenades fronted by modern barbecue joints and design agencies.

  

  

  Something Stockholm does that I've never seen anywhere else: put their open-plan offices on the ground floor behind massive plate-glass windows. You can just look in and see everyone going about their days: powerpoints and Figma and emails. If these agencies produce physical media, they'll usually have it on the back walls, or otherwise mounted on the little radiator pedestal in front of the window, almost as if to advertise their acumen. To the side of the bullpen, also before massive windows, will be a meeting room, where (I assume) agencies compete to see who has the most progressive lounge chairs.

  Around the corner from our hotel, between a single 12-foot pane of glass and a rear wall covered literally floor-to-ceiling in awards, four chairs supported exclusively by braided leather in tension. On the merit of these chairs alone would I hire these folks to design my house, had I but the money.

  I run past a pile of rusty old bicycles and grime-coated electric scooters. They have apparently dredged from the shallow mud of Hammarby sjö and left here for collection.

  

  We've checked nearly everything off of our list of tourist spots to see, so we decide to make our last full day in Stockholm, appropriately, a smörgåsbord. We head, against our better judgement, back to Östermalm to visit the Saluhall, which is by a broad margin the fanciest market, indoor or outdoor, that I have ever seen. There is fish, meat, cheese, fruit & veg in abundance. A trio in exquisitely-cut suits sip cortados in a cafe making extravagant use of gold leaf. Kanelbullar in bell jars leer at me. I cannot muster the courage to ask for one. A pair of Canadian men are chatting up a lobstermonger. The lobstermonger is explaining that some lobsters have barnacles on them. I sneak a peek: the lobsters are, indeed, covered in barnacles. We steal away.

  

  Hungry for bullar, we stroll over to a nearby Thelins on the advice of a listical detailing the best bullar on offer in Stockholm. Thelins feels like it's catering to Japanese people's idea of France. It's a bit fancy for a chain cafe, and the clientele are exactly the kind of people who'd be frequenting a fancy cafe at 11 am on a Monday—that is to say, old folks. The kanelbulle is alright, very light but with a decent chew. Top three, but nowhere near first place, which still goes to Skansen.

  Seeking once again the highs of that first bulle, we head immediately to Bröd & Salt, Stockholm's homegrown response to Starbucks. I'd seen their advertisements on the Stockholm Metro on our first night in town, and I've been lobbying for a visit ever since. The lady behind the counter greets me with a "Hej hej!" which strikes me as both friendly and charming. I am, unfortunately, compelled to answer in English.

  I don't ask for a "cinnamon roll", however—here, as elsewhere in Stockholm, I ask for a kanelbulle. I think it's polite, at least, to try using the local language when abroad, and besides, kanelbulle is only interchangeable with cinnamon roll in categorical terms.

  On the way back to Södermalm, we stop at an outdoors store, a sort of Swedish Shūgakusō. At least half of everything they sell is Fjällräven. We abscond before I'm tempted into making a foolish purchase.

  Lunchtime finds us back on Södermalm on the doorstep of Bruno's korvbar, Stockholm's premier korv-vendor. Bruno & his disciples elevate simple hotdogs into works of art: double-length sausages folded in half—hell, why not two of them!—and wedged into the carved-out butt of a baguette and stuffed with sauerkraut. We retire to a nearby bench to eat and recover.

  

  A final bulle for the day at Skeppsbro bageri in Gamla Stan: a bit flat, nice and dense. Free refills on coffee. Skeppsbro abuts a touristy area and caters to tired Europeans looking for an authentic fika experience. At the next table, someone says, "Isn't this nice? Or would you rather be sitting at home all day?" I take it that the question is rhetorical. On the other side of the window, a couple are feeding the remnants of some pastry to a flock of voracious-looking finches. I polish off the bulle and we skedaddle.

  Stop for a beer on the way back to the hotel. Drinks down the pub (or down the bar, I guess) are a lot more expensive in Sweden than in the UK, and you only get 80% of what you'd get in a festival pint, which makes it worse. We drop by the Coop grocery on the ground floor of our hotel and grab a couple of Maristads(es) to enjoy in front of more weird Swedish TV.

  

  In the evening, we make our way back to Meatballs for the People, where we'd seen a huge lunch queue the day before. They'll make a meatball out of just about any mammal you can find in Sweden, but I go for the relatively-tame reindeer and a local stout. The meatballs are good, but I'm not sure they're good enough to queue for, and probably not as good as the price on the menu indicates.

  Before bed we watch, inexplicably to either of us, all one hundred and twenty-three minutes of Soderbergh's Out of Sight, a tonally atypical heist movie starring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. Apparently the critics went wild for it when it came out, but only Don Cheadle's performance could hold my attention. Looking back, I suspect that we only leave it on as a respite from the enthusiastic Swiffer commercials that occupied, without pause, nearly every second of broadcast on every other channel.

  Sweden Travel Stockholm '23

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