Florentine Food

First of all, let me just say: Mmmmmmm!

I love Italian food, and as it turns out, there’s no better place to get it than in Italy. I’ve eaten tons of pasta so far, and snack on a different panini (technically panino) or its ilk every day after school.

Breakfast is included with my rent, so every morning I have coffee and some type of bread with the lady who shares the apartment with me. Today her daughter had to pick her up early to run some kind of errands, but when I woke up, she had everything set out and even left me a little note to say good morning!

Tags: daily life, food

Madrid, Spain

So, last night Erin and Charlotte dropped me off at the Frankfurt airport and I flew into sunny Madrid. Blessed, blessed, sunny Madrid. How fabulous to be warm again! Which brings me to an inescapable fact–it’s impossible to pack for multi-country journeys. Last year, I packed my Florida gear, knowing that Madrid’s weather would be reasonably comparable to Tampa’s, and I froze to death in Copenhagen and Amsterdam. This year, I pack “autumn” style, which means I’m cold in Germany and hot in Spain. *sigh*

Today, I spend most of the day working (seriously–I spent a good 10 hours glued to my laptop) although I did escape long enough to make two trips.

One was to Plaza Mayor, which was a little disappointing. Now that there’s a big focus on safety and law-abiding, there’s police patrolling everywhere, which means the “vendors” I had counted on encountering were nowhere to be found. Last year, as soon as the sun set, the stone streets leading to the plaza were crowded with vendors hawking their wares on small (1 meter x 1 meter) squares of cloth, around which looped a length of yarn. When the police would show up (once every hour or two), they’d yank on the yarn, which would close the square of fabric into a little bundle, trapping their merchandise inside. The vendors would then scamper off, a knapsack on their back (or whatever). The plaza was the best place to get things on the cheap, from knock-off designer goods to souvenirs for a euro. Now, however, the whole place was empty, which took away from the carnival-esque vibe I’d remembered, complete with street performers such as clowns on stilts and mimes.

In any case, I hadn’t come to the Plaza to buy postcards and painted fans. (Which is a good thing, since I would’ve had to buy them in one of the zillion actual *stores*, at retail price!) Nope, I was in the market for shoes.

That’s right–shoes.

Last year, while in Spain, I couldn’t help but notice that all the women wore the same general style of shoe. I thought they were cute–they reminded me of ballet shoes with straps, and came in a variety of styles, colors, and materials. I meant to buy some and never did (thanks to my anti-shopping mentality) so this time I plan to rectify that error. Also, Erin was interested in knowing what kind of shoe I was talking about (since that description really doesn’t do it justice) so I promised to email her some digital photos and ship her a pair if she saw something she liked. For your viewing enjoyment, I’m attaching a few of the shoe photos here… although I can’t bring back shoes for everyone! (And men in the crowd: I’m afraid these only come in ladies’ sizes. Sorry!)

The other stop was for food, when I went to Pans & Co (pan=bread, not pan like a skillet) where I got the Greek bocadillo, which is a sandwich made of tomatoes, slabs of thick, fresh cheese, and bread that reminds me in shape and consistency of French bread, except that it’s only about a foot long and not quite as big around. The whole thing cost about two fifty–a bargain!

Keeping with that theme, I want your food stories. If it was cheap, delicious, bizarre, surprising, whatever–I want to hear it. (Reminds me of the Simpson’s episode, when Gramps comes home looking like he took a swim through through a toxic waste dump. Marge says, “What happened to him??” and Homer shrugs and answers, “He fell down at the Big Boy.”)

Tags: food, shopping

Frankfurt, Germany

Today I packed up and stuffed my bag into Erin’s trunk, and the three of us set off for sunny Frankfurt. Okay, okay, it wasn’t sunny. Not even close. It was cold and overcast until about 4 or 5 pm, when the sun inexplicably chose to come out and warm the place up for an hour or so before it was time for sunset. No problem… we had our coats and gloves. (Or, at least, I had my coat and
*Charlotte’s* gloves, since she was nice enough to loan me her spare pair, seeing as I forgot mine.)

Frankfurt was smaller than I had expected, but an intriguing mix of old-school German architecture and modern steel-and-glass skyscrapers. We wandered around the streets in search of the elusive walk-platz, and finally had to resort to asking directions from this cute German twenty-something in a suit. We didn’t approach him just because he was handsome (No, really! I swear!) but because Erin figured that since Frankfurt is a hub for international businessmen, chances were good that men in suits would be mulilingual. (She was right.)

We strolled up and down the tree-lined street, sight-seeing and people-watching… the two primary walk-platz activities, next to shopping, eating, and sipping coffee/wine/beer, the latter of which we also did. When my cafe au lait arrived, to my surprise it arrived in a glass cup (the kind you’d serve milk in). Like Erin always says, you never know what you’re going to get when you order food & drink in another country. At least I didn’t get runny egg on my pizza.

For dinner, we went to a German restaurant (for pretty much the first time since I’d been in Germany) and I ordered the Spinach Pancake (called the vegetarisch Panierter Schafskase mit Preiselbereren) figuring it was a different spin on the traditional potato pancake. Wrong again. It turned out to be something more like a crepe wrapped around a massive pile of cooked spinach and smothered with cheese. Even *better* than what I’d imagined!

Tags: food, lost

Luxembourg, Luxembourg

No, that’s not a typo–today we went to Luxembourg the city, in the middle of Luxembourg the country, for our adventuring.

Luxembourg is a pretty mix of modern and ancient spread across rolling hills and decorated with bright-autumn changing leaves. It is also bitterly cold at the moment, but don’t let that deter you–grab a parka and come hang out. =)

Even though we arrived by autobahn, our first stop was the train station. High up on one wall is a large, famous stained glass window featuring a castle at sunset. (They even somehow managed a gradient effect to the colored glass–amazing.)

Afterward, we strolled around the center plaza and ended up lunching at an Italian outdoor cafe. We each got a pizza (because in Europe all pizzas are “personal” size.) Mine was fresh mozzerella, artichokes, and a few varieties of mushroom (which is neat, because in the States I’m typically served the standard generic mushroom.) Charlotte ordered a ham and artichoke pizza, and got a surprise when it was served with a (runny!) egg in the middle of it!

Once we finished eating (except for the runny egg) we headed over to the Modern Art Museum. The first time Erin was here, the walls were lined with small tracks spiralling from ceiling to floor. When you arrived, you were given a marble, and when you reached the top floor, you placed your marble on the first leg of the track and let it clatter around the museum over and over until it hit the ground. She was excited to show us the crazy marble exhibit, so imagine her surprise to find it not only gone–but the main center room filled with sand! (Yes, *sand*.)

The first exhibit contained a car and three paintings, and a good six-to-eight inches of sand. In fact, in order to get to any of the other exhibition halls, we had to cross past the car and clomp through the sand!

The museum is neat for several reasons. First, there’s none of the stereotypical “red circle on black background” modern art paintings. In fact, there were little to no paintings at all. Second, the museum is a revolving collection of exhibitions, rather than an unchanging, permanent set of any one thing. Third, the exhibitions rarely stay longer than 3 months at a time. This means you could come to this museum once every season of the year and it would be a wholly different experience every time!

If I could change anything about the museum, however, it would be to arrange things so that we could see the “real” walls rather than the temporary sheetrock. The bits we could glimpse were covered with frescoes and tapestries and ornate mouldings. But I guess the mind set in Europe is more like, “We have so many old, old buildings–who cares if we turn one into a Modern Art Museum?”

Later, we strolled about the town and in and out of the two main cathedrals. Both had pipe organs on the second story, and one had some kind of shrubbery growing in the baptismal basin. (We have no clue what that was about!)

On that note, have you ever come across something similarly inexplicable in your travels? I can’t be the only one running across runny eggs on pizza and bush-filled baptismal basins. Share your stories!

Tags: cathedrals, food, museums, trains

Heidelburg, Germany & O-Club

This morning, Erin and I arose at the-crack-3-hours-before-dawn and headed into Frankfurt. Her mom arrived in the airport at 6:30 from New York. Since she came from a non-EU country, she landed in a different terminal (1) than I had (2). Terminal 1 was under horrible construction, to the point where if you wanted to get from one part of the terminal to another, you had to go outside, circle the building until you found an entrance door to the area you were looking for, and then go back inside. Since the weather is *freezing* cold, these shenanigans are Not Fun.

Nonetheless, we got there mere seconds before her mom exited customs, so it was perfect timing. We piled her luggage into the car and drove to Heidelburg.

Heidelburg is beautiful, even though it was blanketed with thick fog until around lunchtime and never quite warmed up.

We headed straight to Heidelburg castle, and hiked to the top of the hill maybe 20 minutes before the gates were to open at 8 am. We took a few photos and gazed down across the countryscape until we could enter the castle grounds. Once inside, we went to ticketing and purchased the 10:15 walking tour (the first one in English) and went to do all the non-tour-guided free things.

As it turns out, however, nothing is open until 10. Not the apothecary, the cafes, the gift shops… nothing but the ticket booths. How weird is that?

With nothing else to do but wander around, we set to that task immediately and had a great time exploring the exterior castle grounds and gardens. We were also able to enter the winery (there’s always a winery! love it!) and see the massive wine barrel.

By massive, I mean *massive*. (Photo attached.) This wine barrel has held the Guiness World Record for *centuries*, as the largest vat to ever contain wine. There are staircases to get to the top of it, and over the barrel is a wooden dance floor. That’s right, you heard me–a wine barrel big enough to hoist a dance floor. As we later learned on the tour, the king would have the barrel filled with wine–any wine. Red, white, whatever. As long as it was wine, it was good enough to drink.

The tour was fun, although like many tours, seemed to linger in the least interesting rooms and zoom through the most interesting ones. (Either that, or I have truly bizarre taste in history and decorations.) Nobody really knows exactly how old the castle is. All we know for certain is that the first written record of its existence dates back to the year 800. (Not 1800–just 800. Wow!) As with most castles, it has been remodeled and added onto numerous times over the years. It also suffered destruction by fire twice in the same century. Part of the damaged area was reconstructed in the early to mid 1900s, but other parts will probably remain ruins for the foreseeable future. The combination of old and new made an intriguing experience.

After touring the town of Heidelburg, we headed back to Miesenbach to get ready for tonight’s Hispanic Heritage Banquet at the Officers’ Club on the Rammstein Air Base. Food included salad, tortillas with veggies (or meat), beans & rice, and cheesecake. Not sure that cheesecake is particularly Hispanic, but it was darn tasty.

The entertainment included speakers and dancers, the latter of which I absolutely loved. There was music and dancing representative of many of the Spanish-speaking countries, and even a group of African dancers, from which a lot of Carribbean music and dancing is based. I also got to see Brazilian Capoeira for the first time (live, anyway) which was cool. Capoeira is a style of dancing invented by the slaves in an effort to express themselves while in search of freedom. It combines acrobatics with dance and a coordinated sort of kick boxing.

Of course, the big joke is that I flew to Germany from Spain in order to see flamenco!

Have you seen (or participated in) any cultural dance performances? Let me know all about it!

Tags: airports, castles & palaces, festivals & fiestas, food, random facts & history, wine

Rechtenbach/Gleiszellen Germany & Wissembourg France

Today while Erin was at work, I hijacked her computer, installed a few programs, and spent the day working myself. But, when she got home, we packed up and shipped out on adventure. First, we headed to Schweigen-Rechtenbach. If you’re wondering if the town name is hyphenated because of a recent marriage, the answer is… sort of. Apparently, in this part of Germany, areas are called the hyphenated combination of the two closest (neighboring) towns. I guess this would be the equivalent of saying Tampa-Clearwater, South Bend-Mishawaka, Santa Monica-Los Angeles, etc. I’m just not sure why the towns can’t be independent.

So anyway, we first hung out in Rechtenbach, where there’s a winery (weintor) and pretty scenery. We gave ourselves a self-tour of the winery and climbed up to the top of a tall tower for the view. While we were up there, an older man climbed up the stairs and said something to us in German. Erin didn’t have any clue what he was saying, and since I have pretty much a 50-word vocabulary (plus the numbers so I can count change) I had no idea what was going on, either. He shook a set of keys on a pink keyring at Erin. Figuring someone had dropped them, Erin checked her purse, showed him that she had her keys safe and sound, and said “No” a few times. That had little to no effect because, as it turned out, he was the caretaker trying to lock up the tower without trapping us inside. (Ohhhh.)

After we realized our mistake (with much good-natured laughing on the caretaker’s part, too) Erin and I descended the stairs and decided to snack on some flammkuchen. And wine. (It’s a winery! You can’t not have wine in a winery!) Erin tried to explain flammkuchen to me prior to me laying eyes on it, but like any food item, it’s difficult to explain. I’ll do my best. Imagine the concept of pizza. (Easy, right?) Not pizza itself–but the idea of an open-face breadish susbstance covered with toppings. The breadish thing is thin like a tortilla, but not that flimsy, although not cracker-crisp either. The style we got was Vegetarianisch (I probably killed the spelling on that) which meant it had red peppers, sliced pepperoncini-type peppers, chunks of fresh cheese (not sure what kind), and a bit of garlic for spice. (No pizza sauce, because it’s not pizza. It’s flammkuchen.) I thought it would be small, but it came on a large, rectangluar wooden oven paddle. (They’re baked in flame ovens. I know there’s a better word than “flame oven” but I can’t think of it right now.)

Once we were done eating, we got back in the car and crossed the border into France, where we were detained by seventeen armed guards, three tanks, and a helicopter. Actually… Open EU borders means open EU borders, and if there hadn’t been a sign, I would’ve had no idea we crossed into another country. There were no guards, no checkpoint, no nothing. Easy peasy.

We cruised around looking for Wissembourg for a while, and although we did find it, there wasn’t much going on since the main strip was under construction and the detour pretty much detoured us around the whole town. So we came back across the border in search of Gleiszellen-Gleishorbach, where a wine fest was going on.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t seem to find G-G (as I’m calling it, since I’m a lazy typist) so we drove around looking for someone to whom we could ask directions. Erin says, “We need to find someone who speaks English.” To which I said, “Or French. If they speak French, we can get directions, too.” She made no return comment. (Bear with me and you’ll see the significance in a moment.) We head up a residential hill and see a man with a water hose in his yard. Erin pulls over as I roll down my window.

[pardon the spelling below because I speak it better than I can write it.]

“Sil vous plait,” I call out. “Ou est le festival du vin?”

He puts down the water hose. “Bitte?”

Since I’m a moron, I fail to catch the significance of that single word. So, I rephrase. “Je cherche le festival du vin. Est-ce que vous connais ou ca est?”

He makes a crazy face and starts spouting off gibberish. (Or it could’ve been German. I really need to study up.) He then motions over his wife, who cuts across the lawn to join the conversation. (If you can call it that.)

Once again, I launch into another version of “Do you have any idea where we can find the wine festival?” and both of them chatter back in German.

Erin says, “Forget it.” We wave our thanks and take off.

“I can’t believe they don’t speak French,” I say, semi-outraged.

“Yeah,” Erin agrees. “We’re less than 2 minutes from the border.”

I start looking around the neighborhood more closely and my jaw drops. “Hey,” I say. “This is crazy. Even the *signs* around here are in German!”

At this point, Erin stops the car, levels me with a look, and says, “Erica. We’re *in* Germany.”

Ohhh.

I had completely forgotten. No wonder the Germans spoke to me in… well… German.

And that, my friends, is what happens when you combine ADD with open borders. Absolutely no clue what country you might be in or what language you ought to be speaking at any given moment.

So, we drive around the next corner or two and come across two younger (twenty-something) guys with bikes. Erin says, “Ask *them* for directions.”

But now I’m feeling so idiotic that I can’t fathom forcing my French onto another German. She convinces me that the younger inhabitants are multilingual and that we should give it a shot.

We roll up and I ask if they know where the wine fest is. To which they crack up laughing (luckily not at my French-in-Germany) and respond, “Il-y-a beaucoup des festivals du vin.” (There’s a gazillion wine fests.)

Oh. So they ask me which one in particular we’re looking for, and of course I don’t know. I throw out G-G’s town name, and they happen to know which one I mean and give us directions.

Finally, we arrive at G-G where the wine fest is hopping. We park in a field with the other cars and buses and saunter up the streets, decorated with strands of hanging lights and lots of flowers. Clusters of local food and wine vendors line the streets, and the jovial crowd bustles inbetween.

By jovial, I mean *jovial*. The band struck up a tune and everyone starting singing and swaying to various German drinking songs, and even in the winding streets where the music could no longer be heard, groups of people spontaneously burst into drinking songs and chants and whole tables would sway together and join in the song. At times, it was so loud Erin and I couldn’t even talk. The great thing was that everybody was in the spirit, and there was absolutely no censoriousness. If older people passed by a table of rowdy youngsters swinging and swaying, they just grinned and raised their glasses.

Erin and I tried two different wines apiece. Her first one was OK, but a little warm for white wine. My first one was bubbly, kind of like a would-be asti but not quite. (That’s an awesome description, isn’t it? I should totally get a job writing wine labels.) My second wine was bizarre, but surprisingly delicious. It was apple flavored (which makes sense, since apples are in season and orchards are everywhere. Vendors fill the walk-platz with their bags and baskets of fresh apples.) The second wine came in a souvenir glass, which I could return to the tent for my deposit back, or choose to keep. (Naturally, I’m taking that baby home.) The glass is neat–it has a picture of the local vinyard/winery where my wine came from, and the year that the wine was first produced.

Have you visited any wineries or wine/beerfests? I want to hear all about it!

Tags: festivals & fiestas, food, lost in translation, wine

From Spain to Germany

This morning I woke up, scarfed down a croissant (OK, two croissants), snapped a photo of the lovely construction view from my balcony, and headed for the Madrid airport. The airport is massive. I was in Terminal 4, which has sections A through K (maybe more, I was in J so that’s as far as I went) and each letter has a slew of… I don’t know the word. Every time I come to Europe, I forget English. A slew of… places where you board a plane. (Gates?)

Anyway, I bought my ticket online from home. I unfold my printout from the web site confirmation and the printout of the emailed e-ticket, and suddenly I happen to notice that both items, in big, bold, capital letters, say: “Credit Card used in this purchase MUST BE PRESENTED in order to receive boarding pass and board flight.”

Oops. I totally didn’t bring that card. It charges me massive international fees for every overseas transaction (I found this out the hard way last year, once I came home and saw my account statements) so I left it at home. Naturally, I need to board this airline 4 different times… <>

So, I go to the ticketing counter, full of trepidation, but the guy serving me is so blessedly clueless, he doesn’t even ask about it. He did ask whether I preferred window or aisle, I said window, he said window, and printed me a ticket for aisle. I can only hope to have similar help the next 3 times!

The plane ride was uneventful, for the most part. Air Iberia gives out free newspapers, which was cool, but you have to pay for your own food and drink if you want water and peanuts. (They do have other offerings… It’s a whole food cart that comes down the aisle at least twice.) Being both poor and cheap, I just sat there, reading my paper, and chewed a piece of gum.

In this paper (which, bizarrely, used *other* newspaper articles as its primary sources) there was an article about how 1 out of every 10 British 20-somethings and 1 out of every 20 older British adults are eager to have credit card chips implanted under their skin so they don’t have to mess with a purse/wallet and the potential for identity theft and pickpocketing. According to El Universal (the paper), already testing has been underway for some time, using dogs and cats and horses. (Who, I’m sure, are big shoppers and appreciate the experiment.)

Once I arrived in Frankfurt, I zipped through to baggage claim (intra-EU flights don’t have to go through customs, although–also bizarrely–this was set up as honor system, with one line for people going through customs and the other for people not wanting to go through customs) and met up with Erin. Yay!

We drove the ~1 hour south to Kaiserslautern (known by the locals as K-town) near the Rammstein Air Force Base. I dropped off my luggage in Erin’s spare room, and we wandered around K-town for a couple hours, sightseeing and just generally hanging out. We rounded out the night in a restaurant called Himalaya (nothing says Germany quite like Indian food!) where I got saag paneer (my favorite) and Erin got what the menu described as “typical Nepali chicken”. We have no idea what that means, but she said it was delicious. So there you go.

Tags: airplanes, airports, food, random facts & history, shopping

Madrid, Spain

Still in sunny Madrid this morning, although the weather is not quite as warm as yesterday. I didn’t get a chance to look it up, but I’m guessing low 70s F. I actually wore my fleece this morning on my walk to the Metro, but not much throughout the rest of the day. I’m guessing I’ll get more use out of my wintry clothes over the next couple weeks.

So, today I started out with a hotel-provided breakfast of croissants and cheese slices. I forgot all about the cheese slices on a plate until I saw them this morning, and it made me laugh. It’s some kind of cheese that I don’t know, sliced in a square like Kraft Singles but it’s the color of Swiss (minus holes) and cut super thin. Next I went to the Atocha train station to reserve my tickets and then realized I hadn’t brought my Eurail pass with me. (oops.) So I came back, swung by El Corte Ingles to get some band aids for my ampollos and then up to the room (4th floor) to get my Eurail pass and my mp3 player.

At Atocha (which looks like Jurassic Park inside–very cool) I stood in a long, long line, but not as horrendous as last night, which is good. I was able to get most of my tickets except for Italy and a couple for France, so that’s one hassle mostly hurdled. I then decided to walk to el Museo del Prado and spend all day looking at art with a rented audioguide, but… on my way I passed the sidewalk sale. Those of you who know me well know that I’d rather stick my head in an oven than go shopping, but this was a sidewalk sale of *books*. Books, I tell you! I absolutely, positively, cannot be trusted around books. I think I bought some from every single vendor. I had to throw out all my clothes just to pack them in my suitcase, and it’s only the 3rd day. (OK, I didn’t throw out all my clothes… but that’s the choice I would’ve made if it came to that.) How could I pass it up? Some English-language authors like Robin Cook and Stephanie Bond (translated into Spanish of course) and a ton of Spanish authors, and some from other countries.

So, when I finally made it the half-mile or so to the Prado Museum, my shoulder was already weighed down with more or less my body weight in books. (Or at least it felt that way.) Instead of spending all day at the museum (the beginning hour or so of which was spent book browsing) I stayed until about 5pm (rather than 7:30) before I gave up. I’ll come back in a couple weeks, maybe. (It’s free on Sundays, although more crowded.)

The weird thing about being in Madrid is that although I’m toting the camera everywhere I go, I’m hardly taking any pictures. I’ve been pretty much everywhere (and documented 99% of it on film previously) so there’s no real reason to take yet *another* picture of XYZ statue or ABC fountain. I did notice that the entire city is under major construction (Retiro Park says they’ll be done in 4 months, not sure about the people re-bricking the streets) so I’m interested in coming back in another year or two and seeing the upgrades. I did get to ride in a brand spanking new Metro train, the sort where you can see from one end all the way down to the other end, rather than boxed off cars.

I met some people from Oregon who were in Madrid by way of Ireland, and who told me that people from Edinburgh call people from Glasgow “soap dodgers” (which is a hilarious insult) due to their alleged stinkiness, and that Glasgow is the 2nd most likely place in the world to get stabbed. (#1 is some place in South Africa.) Apparently, gang members in track suits strap machetes to their thighs and stab people–rival gang members and ignorant tourists alike–who wander into their ‘hoods. And these ‘hoods aren’t your typical ghetto… they’ve been razed and replaced with government housing in the form of the tallest skyscrapers in Ireland. So the people on the street basically don’t go near tall buildings, because if they do, they’ll be stabbed. (If I decide to tour Glasgow someday, I’m guessing I better not pack a track suit.)

After all that fun, I came back to the hotel and did some work because tomorrow morning I get up nice and early so I can fly to Frankfurt to see Erin!

Tags: books, food, museums, trains, travel tips

Williamsburg, VA

Today, we got up and breakfasted before we split ways – me to the hotel room to do work on my laptop, Andy and Rob to Colonial Williamsburg so Rob could see the reenactment he missed on Tuesday.

Around noon, the boys rolled back into the hotel room, ten shades of hot and sweaty, collapsing on the beds and panting like dogs. Andy managed to explain that they didn’t get to see the Reenactment because tickets were required ($34 per adult is the smallest Williamsburg ticket deal) and Rob begged me to check the Weather Channel’s web site to get the current temp. Verdict? 92 degrees, with a heat index of 103. Yikes. No wonder they were hot! I tossed each of them a water bottle, glad that I’d sent them off with water bottles in the first place, and asked them if they wanted to hang out in the pool. No, they said. It was too hot to walk the hundred yards from the room to the indoor pool. Poor things. (At least they got ice cream while they were out – all I’ve got is a half-smushed granola bar.)

While the boys melted into their mattresses, both of them glued to the Discovery channel followed by Law & Order, followed by Who Wants to be a Millionaire and Cash Cab, etc, I sat with my laptop getting a ton of stuff done – until the hotel Internet flaked out and died. I called to complain and of course the only person who could decipher my cryptic message (”please reboot your router”) was out to lunch, so I took off for the Food Lion and loaded up on bagel-chips and hummus. Rob seemed to think the hummus was radioactive, but Andy and I took care of the entire tub in record time. By then, the Internet connection was up and running again and I was able to get a lot of my work uploaded, to my intense relief.

Later, we hit the IHOP for supper and went to the movies to see Pirates of the Carribbean before coming back to the hotel room to pack up. The wake-up call comes at 6:00 am – wish us luck!! =)

Tags: food

Colonial Williamsburg

This morning we got up, got ready, and got breakfast… and then Rob got sick, so he stayed in the hotel room to get some sleep while Andy and I headed for Colonial Williamsburg.

The majority of the buildings are from the 1700s, and the costumed inhabitants are pleased to share their knowledge with anyone who asks questions. Most of the larger structures, such as the foundry, the magazine, and big estates, also have guided tours to explain what you see and what life was like here in Virginia in the 18th century.

Andy and I were wandering aimlessly down one of the streets, when a woman stopped us to ask if we were on our way to the reenactment. Reenactment? We had no idea. She said if we kept walking in the direction we were going, we’d run smack into it, and that’s what we did. We reached the the Capitol building at 10:45 am, July 25, 1776, just in time to hear the Declaration of Independence read to an excited mob of 18th century Virginians.

The reenactment took place at several different locations, each in its own “time”, at a key point in history. When the actors weren’t acting their scenes, they stayed in character and would answer questions as if they were living in that exact moment. For example, one actor, Wil, a thirty-something black slave, was thrilled to hear the Declaration in 1776 because he thought freedom was around the corner. A couple “years” later, he realized that freedom only applied to the states as separate from England, not for slaves. He later debated running away to join the British troops, who offered “freedom” to slaves who fought on their side. A year later, one of Williamsburg’s trusted allies – Benedict Arnold – swoops in to seize the city.

The (very interactive) reenactment continued in this vein until General Washington himself rode in to announce the good news that the war was ending, and set off toward Yorktown and victory. Pretty cool.

Andy and I toured the magazine, which housed all the guns and ammo, and the foundry, where its workers were busy silversmithing and… pewtersmithing?

Next, we swung by the hotel to check on Rob, who had just woken up and was feeling much better, so we walked back to the old town and had a bite to eat before taking more tours.

We rounded out the night with some good old-fashioned Japanese cooking on the habachi grill… Rob took to chopsticks like a fish to water, but apparently Andy’s chopstick skills looked a little shaky, because the hostess ran back to our table with a pair of training chopsticks for him. Andy took one look at the rubber-banded training chopsticks and refused to use them, determined to master the real deal, which he did.

He also had an opportunity to stop, drop, and roll, when one of the chef’s tricks turned out to be setting the table on “fire” and Andy thought the whole place was going to blow. He leapt and ducked and was a good sport when everybody cracked up, and the rest of the tricks (knife-catching, shaker-tossing, flaming onion volcano, etc) unfolded without a hitch.

Tags: food, reenactments