British Summer

There are several traditions that define the great British summer. Women get all dressed up and don their three foot high hats to attend Royal Ascot, people take up every inch of sidewalk space to sit outside of the pub with a pint or a Pimm's, and everyone breaks out the BBQ to cook outdoors where one minute the sun is beating down and the next rain drops appear out of nowhere. One of the greatest British summer traditions is music festivals and outdoor concerts. Yesterday I was able to partake in this great tradition by attending a Jack Johnson concert in Hyde Park. The venue opened at 2pm and the first act was scheduled for 4pm so we got to the park at 3:30pm to stake out a spot for 6 on the grass. It seemed we arrived just in time to get one of the last decent spots that was blocked by the platform for the sound guy. With the opening acts (Mason Jennings, G. Love & Special Sauce, and Ben Harper) still 30 minutes away we decided that it was a good time to start having a few drinks.

I was really looking forward to this concert because there's nothing like being outdoors in London with a pitcher of Pimm's and some good entertainment. Unfortunately, as is likely in England during the summer, the forecast was for rain that evening so it was hardly Pimm's weather when we arrived. We started with a few beers and about an hour later the heavens parted and the sun came through. It went from brollies and wellies to tank tops and sunglasses in a matter of minutes. This was definitely Pimm's weather now so we ventured off to find ourselves some. Luckily a stand nearby had them flowing freely so we grabbed our pitcher and went back to guard our spot.

Mason Jennings came on first and although I was not previously familiar with his music, the performance was very good. It was fairly mellow with just him and his guitar but it was enough to get the crowd growing. G. Love & Special Sauce came on next, whom I've also never heard of, and didn't enjoy nearly as much. It was a little too punk and irreverent for my taste. Then came Ben Harper who was fantastic. I hadn't checked the lineup so I was surprised he was opening for Jack Johnson as I would have expected him to headline his own show. He played an excellent set with mainly songs from the new album but he did close with Steal My Kisses. Finally Jack Johnson came on but at that point I was already a couple beers and two pitchers of Pimm's in. I even managed to get my way back to the bar for a final pitcher without having enough money but the gentleman was kind enough to give me one anyway. Those who know me well understand that I could have been quite happy and buzzed after the first beer so why I thought I had the ability to absorb this amount of alcohol was lunacy. I do recall Jack Johnson playing some of his popular songs such as Sitting, Waiting, Wishing and Upside Down but as my friends would say, I was three sheets to the wind at this point. Also, in my not so "indoor voice" I kept "whispering" to everyone that I was really drunk. Even to the lovely people around me whom I'd never met before.

I did somehow make it to a very late dinner after the concert with the help of my trusty companions. They even managed to get me all the way home without any episodes. As soon as I got upstairs and into my flat there was no holding back though. I rushed straight to the toilet and unleashed everything that had been in my stomach over the last 8 hours. Not one of my finest moments but life is full of exciting experiences.

Vive la France

You probably already know that I'm a bit of a francophile. There is just something about the culture, food, fashion, and mood in France that I absolutely love. Well here's a couple more things to add to the list. I arrived at the airport in Toulouse a bit lost trying to figure out where my bags would turn up. I stopped to ask a nice looking young woman where the carousel with my bags was and she stopped me to say how much she liked the top I was wearing. She touched part of the attached scarf and repeated again how nice my top was. In all of my travels, I have never been able to master the art of looking half decent getting off of a place, be it a one hour or twelve hour flight. So you have no idea how elated I was to hear that I was not looking too worse for the wear.

After taking a conference call and dropping my bags off at the hotel, I went directly into the main town center. The taxi driver said that he would drop me off in the main area where there was an outdoor market and I could eventually walk along some alleys with nice shops on my way to dinner. As soon as I peaked into the open market I caught sight of a kind-looking ederly woman frying fresh churros at a stand nearby. Considering they're of Spanish origin I was a bit surprised to see churros in France. But if Catherine de Medici can steal the secrets of fine Italian cooking and bring them to France, then why not churros as well. Since my dinner reservations were a couple hours away I decided that a small bag of fresh churros as a snack wouldn't hurt.

I did manage to get lost down a few alleys with cute French shops that took me in circles for quite some time eventually landing me on the street where I would find dinner. I had done some research before heading to Toulouse and had decided that my one "nice" meal would be at the Brasserie de Beaux-Arts which sits above the bank of La Garonne River. Although the typical dish of this region is cassoulet, I decided that on a warm summer's day it would be too heavy to have a cassorole consisting of beans, sausage, goose fat, duck fat, pork, lamb and so on. Instead I pondered all of the fresh seafood on the menu. If you've ever been to a restaurant with me then you know it's impossible for me to order off of a normal menu (if you've seen When Harry met Sally, I'm definitely Sally). I usually want one of everything or I want something from one dish and something from another dish, but never what is being offered strictly on the menu. True to form when the waiter came over and asked what I'd like to have, I gave him a blank stare. We at least narrowed my choices down to seafood and he suggested a starter of 6 prawns or 6 raw oysters. I kept going back and forth and then asked if I could get 3 of each. He paused for a moment and said sure, for you, we'll do it! See why I love the French? After some more debate on the mains we decided on one of the specials which was a lobster salad with blanched almonds, haricot verts, mango slices, lettuces, and a tart dressing. Sad to say though that I was so full after all of this that I ended my meal without dessert but had an amazing cafe instead. They did manage to scrounge up a madeleine to go with it so I did have something sweet to end with after all.

After dinner I walked along La Garonne River where my taxi driver had said there would be dancing and music on the other side of the bank. After awhile though my torn ACL started to bother me so I had to call it an early night. At least I have one more happy memory of France stored away.

Warwick Avenue

"Warwick Avenue" by Duffy has got to be my new favorite song!



I'm not sure how popular Duffy is in the US but she's pretty big here in the UK. When she first arrived on the music scene she was mainly billed as an Amy Winehouse imitator with her soulful voice reminiscent of Etta James. At first her single "Mercy" was overplayed on the radio and even included in the Sex and the City Movie so I got sick of hearing her pretty quickly. Then her single "Warwick Avenue" came out and now I'm hooked.

My coworker first brought this song to my attention because Warwick Avenue is the tube stop near where I live. Then I heard a radio interview of Duffy this morning where she was asked why she chose to name her song after this particular tube stop on the Bakerloo line (the brown line for the Americans confused by the TFL map) since there are about 100 she could have chose from. It's a very sad song that she said she wrote when she first moved to London (she's Welsh) and she had to leave all of her family and friends behind. Duffy also said that she was getting over her breakup with her hometown love Tom.

I don't like all of the songs on her latest album but give "Warwick Avenue" a try. I wish her the best of luck since she seems like a nice down-to-earth gal (she's Welsh afterall) who doesn't need to get drugged up and hit the headlines all the time like Amy Winehouse.

Twilight Zone

When you were growing up, did you ever feel as though there was another family out there just like yours but living in another dimension? And if you ever met, the space-time continuum would unravel? That's how I've always felt about my uncle's family in Germany who I visited last weekend.

Whenever I say that I have close family in Germany everyone is always confused as to how and why so let me give you some background first. In 1979 my maternal grandfather paid for my mother's entire family to flee Vietnam. Our first stop was to a refugee camp in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia where we waited for our final passage to a western country. My father's brother was able to sponsor my immediate family to America while the rest of my mother's family was only able to get to Germany where they've settled ever since.

Now back to the twilight zone. The similarities between my immediate family and my uncle's family have always been very strange to me. Both families have four children with two girls and two boys. The oldest in both families are girls who were born in Vietnam the same year. The youngest are both boys who are 10+ years younger than the other siblings. We only see each other once every 5 years or so but it's amazing to me that although we grew up in different countries on different continents, we are so much the same. We instinctively do the same duties in our parents' homes, we were forced to do the same embarassing dances as kids, we enjoy the same strange smelly food, and we are rooted in the same traditions. I am really surprised that both sets of kids managed to grow up more Vietnamese than German or American.

The only issue with being so similar is that when we do meet up, instead of unraveling the space-time continuum, we break the Geneva peace agreements. Being this much alike makes it very easy for our parents to spar against each other using us as weapons. It's a bit sad to watch them go at it so I try to stay as far away from the battlegrounds as I possibly can. Therefore, going to my uncle's house alone for the weekend completely unarmed was a little naive. I met my uncle's barage of how is my career going, how many homes have I purchased, why did I spend so little time in school compared to his kids. It is nice to see though that my cousins and I haven't gotten as caught up in the mess at the adults have. We still find excuses to sneak out of the house to go downtown for a drink and some fun.

In the end I made it back to London fairly unscathed and this visit meant that I don't have to go back for another 5 years.

Am"Bush"ed in Israel

Last week I was in Israel with Ro (the boss) during the country's 60th anniversary. This was really surprising to me that the country won it's independence only 60 years ago from the British. I had no idea that Israel was such a young country or that it had ever been occupied by the British. But then again the British empire seems to want to conquer everything. The anniversary also made it an ideal time for President W. Bush to visit Israel for the middle east peace talks. How delightful for us considering that Hamas decided to launch the largest rocket ever fired from the Gaza strip hitting a town 1 hour away from Jerusalem. No need to worry though as Ro and I didn't go to Jerusalem until the following day.

This was likely Ro's last trip to Israel so he wanted to spend some time on a tour of Jerusalem. Some readers may be aware that I took a tour of Jerusalem on my last visit to Israel but I didn't mind going again since it's really a beautiful and historic city and my tour was pretty quick and dirty last time. On this trip we were also able to visit Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum. Yad Vashem is an amazing yet eerie place dedicated to the rememberance of the 6 million Jews killed during the Holocaust. We were only given an hour and half to tour the musuem which was not nearly enough to stop and take in all of the images and stories on display. It would be nice to come back at some point to see the museum in greater detail.

I haven't got much else to write about Israel as it was mostly another exhausting work trip but I did manage to get some more pictures.

Lost in Space

It's been awhile since my last blog posting because I've been a bit lost in space between work, travel, and experiencing London. On top of all this I'm working on a special personal project which I will be able to tell you all about in a few weeks. Since I last left you I've been to Paris and Munich for work and New York for pleasure. Paris and Munich were the usual so there isn't much to say. I did decide to have a bit of a gastronomic weekend in Paris before the work started which included brunch at Rose Bakery, dinner and a show with the open kitchen at Ze Kitchen Galerie, and dinner at Guy Savoy's Atelier Maitre Albert. They were all spectacularly memorable meals.

For the first bank holiday weekend in May (equivalent to Labor Day in the states) I decided to go visit my two very good girlfriends and best boyfriends (Jimmy, Barney, Bergdorf, etc.) in New York City. NYC with these two girls typically means late nights out and long shopping days by myself. I'm a lone shopper in this group since NYC is my favorite city to go shopping outside of Paris but these girls don't quite have the stamina (or the madness to spend a lifetime paying off a pair of shoes). True to form I arrived in NYC at nine on Friday evening (after a 6.5 hour flight) and proceeded to my friend's flat where I had a shower. I was quickly ushered back out the door and didn't return until 3am or 4am, when I returned on my own because the rest of the group was still going strong. The weekend afforded a couple more sleepless nights and some serious shopping between 5th Avenue, midtown, SOHO, and the village. I also did manage to make it out to Hoboken, NJ where one good friend lives and she swears it's the best place on earth. I view it more as yuppie central where the young, up and coming, NYC wannabe crowd commute from but it's cheaper and has good transport links. Along with being able to catch with my girls, I my trip had another highlight. While at baggage claim back in London, I saw Claudia Schiffer! Apparently she was on the same flight from JFK to LHR (in first class no doubt while I was in cattle class) and was waiting for her bags as well. She did look incredible for having just been on a ~6 hour flight with her cashmere pashmina, Prada two-tone bowler (from the fall/winter 2007 collection), Oliver Peoples sunglasses, velvet caramel coloured crop jacket, wide-leg jeans, and caramel ballet flats. I may have just noticed what she was wearing as she picked up her Louis Vuitton Pegase 60 suitcase.

What I've been trying to spend most of my free time on lately though is enjoying the amazing weather in London. For the past week the weather has consistently been in the mid-20s C (mid to high 70s F) which means London is completely transformed. Everyone puts on their shorts, skirts, tank tops, and flip flops and heads out to find any outdoor space available. People are lined on the streets at the local pubs, crowding roof top bars, grabbing sandwiches and laying out in all the parks leaving no inch of green space visible. It was estimated that thousands called in sick this week to enjoy the weather.

I've only got some pictures from Paris over these last few weeks but they're linked on the left.

Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

This week was a whirlwind tour through Italy mainly for work, five cities in six days. My trip started in Torino which had some of the familiar qualities of a major Italian city (sprawling piazzas, imposing duomos, abundant gelaterias) but it didn’t do much for me. I should qualify that statement with the fact that I completely blew through Torino and didn’t spend more than a couple hours wandering the downtown area looking for a nice place for dinner. I was looking for a restaurant called Mare Nostrum which came with high recommendations. For some reason when it was described to me, I took the restaurant to be a quaint little trattoria where I could just stop by and easily get a table. It was a Monday night after all. I strolled in around 8pm and was immediately turned away as they didn’t have anything available the entire evening. I came to learn later that Mare Nostrum is the best place in Torino to have seafood so I was sadly mistaken when I thought I could get seated instantly.

The next evening in Milan more than made up for my loss though. During the day I asked a local for a restaurant recommendation and he quickly called and made reservations for me at, in his words, “a good and reasonably priced” restaurant near downtown Milan. The main attraction for my evening though was an opera at Teatro alla Scala. Knowing I was heading to Milan I had secured a ticket to see Macbeth at the famed opera house. Teatro alla Scala had recently undergone renovations that included the addition of a new surtitle system. The theatre and the music did not disappoint even though I had the most uncomfortable seats I’ve ever experienced in my life. If I merely twitched in my seat I’d bump into my neighbor. My fault for not wanting to spend 500 euro on a single ticket. Dinner afterwards at Il Pontaccio was impressive as well. When I walked in the waiter knew exactly who I was without me saying a word. He sat me down in a nice corner table and immediately poured me a glass of prosseco. Next to the glass he put down a basket of bread cubes that had been lightly toasted and tossed in olive oil. After a few questions about the menu he decided himself on what I should have for dinner. I started with a beautiful and fresh lobster salad with watercress and pomegranate, followed by risotto Milanese and osso buco for my main, ending with a light and fluffy tiramisu. The waiter also gave me the tastiest glass of Barolo to go with my meal. By midnight I was full, drunk, and happy and ready to get back to the hotel to sleep it all off.

After my seminar finished I had about a day and half to do some sightseeing. I decided to check out the towns that are the setting of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. I first took a brief tour of Padova (Padua), the city Romeo flees to after he kills Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin. Padova is known as the city of the “Saint without a name”; the city of the “meadow without grass”; the city of the “café without a door”. I was able to see the Prato della Valle, an elliptical square that is the largest in Italy (the meadow without grass), and the Basilica di San Antonio (the Saint without a name because his worshipers referred to him just as Saint). I ended my visit with lunch and a macchiato at the Pedrocchi Caffé. The Pedrocchi Caffé was built between 1826 and 1831 as a place where professors, students, and merchants came to discuss political and social matters. It made me think of Sproul Plaza in Berkeley. During those days it never closed so became known as the café without a door. I headed to Verona (the main setting of the Romeo and Juliet) to see the outdoor Arena di Verona and Juliet’s balcony. The Arena was built completely of stone in 1913 and is home to the most famous open air opera season in the world. Unfortunately I was a bit early and since the season doesn’t being until the weather gets a bit warmer. Although no one has proved the existence of the star-crossed lovers, the del Capello family did exist and owned the house on Via Capello which has the balcony that supposedly inspired Shakespeare’s work. After some shopping in Verona I continued on to Sirmione on Lago di Gardo. Sirmione is a beautiful little peninsula that is considered the pearl of Lake Garda that has given inspiration to figures like Dante. Perhaps it was the season or the late hour of the day but Sirmione is what I see when I imagine a quaint Italian town. It was fairly empty and quiet when I came up to the site of the overbearing Castle of Sirmione. There were plenty of winding alleys and I could hear the water all around me. When I came up to a shop that listed enoteca and formaggeria on the window, how could I not walk in? I had no idea what cheeses I ate or what wine they gave me but it was the perfect ending to my day.

I think instead of living la dolce vita (the sweet life), I'd like to experience some more days of la dolce far niente (the sweetness of doing nothing).