The Purple Penguin

The pub on Friday night was fun. Lots and lots of fun. So much fun that we had a very very slow start to Saturday. One of those starts that involved long hot showers, a bit of coffee, lots of juice, and lots of sitting on the sofa looking outside and saying “well, what do you want to do today?”

At around noon we headed out to Manayuck, a really nice little area of Philadelphia. Actually it’s where we were on Friday night. But on Saturday we went to a nice little restaurant and had brunch. The place was packed and once getting our food it was obvious to see why. However, Joe being awkward asked for a fried egg on his burger. This had obviously never ever been heard of at that particular place so the waitress very carefully wrote down what he wanted, including a description of how to cook the egg. His burger shows up with scrambled egg on top. Joe just shrugged and ate it. [Joe: give them another couple of months and it will be on the menu as a specialty. The fried egg burger.]

We then walked up and down and the main street which is lined with little specialty shops with lots of weird things. We window shopped and occasionally went into a shop just to laugh at the prices. Though I did get a Bush’s last day in office badge – it’s black with 01.20.09 in white writing. Had to.

We also walked along the canal behind the shops. Then just back home to sit and chat. Chinese take away for dinner of which we ate far too much trying everything. Just a quiet day. We watched telly and chatted. Joe watched a college football game, then a baseball game (Hal even got out his team’s jersey to cheer them on for the baseball – they won. It must have been the jersey.) We also saw some of the lead up adverts for the Eagles/Dallas game we’re attending. It’s going to be interesting. Hopefully we’ll survive to post about it later!

Yesterday was fun. Waffles for breakfast – or as Allison called them, fake waffles for breakfast. They were good even if fake. OK, not fake, just frozen ones that you toast. But then Joe pointed out he’d just been in Belgium. Smug git. [Joe: see previous posts.] [Kathleen: especially the one about parks in Brussels. Joe doesn’t have any bright blue jockies.] [Joe: Yet.]

When we woke up (well, when I woke up at 2am) we could hear what sounded suspiously like rain. So we ignored it. But it kept sounding like water dripping from the sky no matter how hard we ignored it. So finally looked outside and yep, looked just like a typical London morning. So why do I travel again? So when Allison woke up she turned on the telly to check the weather channel (ok, so I travel so I can see different things like an entire channel dedicated to nothing but the weather. Surprising that Britain didn’t do this one years ago.) The weather channel was of no use as it was forecasting rain, sometimes heavy rain, all day long. And tornados. But they were somewhere else. Maybe off the British coast? Even the local channel was saying rain. All day.

Oh yes, while Joe was checking the weather (by looking out the window) he got to see a bit of continuing story. Apparently the neighbours are interesting people with very interesting lives that they share with the neighbourhood – by having screaming rows in the middle of the street and having the police around on a regular basis. So when Joe checked the weather he got to see the nice policeman leaving the house. The rest of us missed it.

Allison dropped us off by the Liberty Bell on her way to a meeting. The park is quite nice. We headed for the Liberty Bell first which meant going through airport security procedure again. Well, we didn’t have to take our shoes off, but just about everything else had to come off. Watches, belts, jackets, coats, everything out of pockets. The displays are interesting and the bell itself is in a nice setting. But it was a zoo, with loads of people and school trips. The information centre was also quite nice and had the added benefit of being dry. Even if they didn’t have any postcards of the bell. But they did have an Eagles Monopoly game. And Eagles shot glasses. And Phillies Christmas ornaments. But no Liberty Bell postcards. Oh well.

We then walked. In the rain and wind. [Joe: we got to see statues and old buildings. The weather really wasn’t right for appreciating the surroundings.] [Kathleen: We saw the beginnings of democracy! Of Liberty (unless of course you had the wrong colour skin or gender). Of freedom (see Liberty for exceptions). Well, that was what all the information signs said anyway. Except perhaps the bit about colour and sex.] We walked around the Independence Hall and the historical park, then headed down Chestnut (Joe has decided Philadelphia is full of nuts as the other road we were told to perhaps take was Walnut).

It was a nice, though very wet, walk. We took shelter in Liberty Place, a small shopping arcade. There were few shops, the main area was the food court, I’m pretty sure there were more places to eat or get food than there were of all the other shops combined. And all sorts of food. From salads, sandwichs, to sushi, to tex mex, to pizza, to coffee shops, to Chinese, to turkey. But no doughnuts. Well, with that much food around we had to stop. Anyway, we were wet and wanted to dry off a bit. So a frozen fruit smoothie and a coffee and apple crumble cake later we were a bit drier and ready to face the elements again. (Guess which had which menu!)

We walked to the Franklin Institute which is a rather nifty science museum. They had a special exihibtion on Darwin which Allison wanted to see so we met up with her there. We had a choice of heading into the exhibition immediately or waiting half an hour so we chose to wait and went to see the giant heart first. Got to play blood cell going through the heart and lungs which was fun, but they could have done with a slide or two. [Joe: no comment.] After playing, um, looking at the displays in the heart area we headed up to learn about Darwin.

It was the first day of the exhibition and they were still setting up a couple of things but overall it was good. Very good. Cambridge University Library must be empty of anything to do with Darwin as it’s all in Philadelphia at the moment. They had Darwin’s notebooks (including the one with the scetch of the evolution tree), many of the samples he’d brought back from the Galapagus and elsewhere, his geological hammer, and other artifacts. They also had Galapagus tortaises (from Minnosota I think, but not from Galapagus!), igauna, and four froggies (though one seemed to be AWOL). Of course, they are frogs that like to hide themselves and then gulp down anything foolhardy enough to walk in front of them, but the other three were pretty obvious.

After the Darwin exhibition we went to see the electricity display, you can’t miss that in the Franklin Institute.

We then headed for dinner and a night out on the town. Dinner was wonderful, a really nice place right on the river.[joe: I had chicken dipping starts, with blueberry beer, then meatloaf with october fest beer.] The pub we then went to was nice, lots of import beers, and local US beers, live music and bit loud and we had a great time. Of course, this morning we’re taking our time gettin going.

We are human again. Shower, brush teeth and coffee is all it takes. This message brought to you by Kathleen typing and Joe commenting!

After about 5 hours of sleep we got up at 3am on Thursday to be ready for our taxi at 4am. They usually show up a bit early which is nice. Off to the airport and ready to check in. The flight was ok, other than being seated in the children’s area, and not very crowded at all. Instead of sleeping though we watched stupid movies. [Joe: didn’t get amazing amounts of food. Kathleen erm, yes we did. Two meals. Joe: no we didn’t. Wasn’t two meals. Kathleen: right, breakfast (omlette or french toast, so-so), and then later a sandwich, crisps and chocolate. Two meals.] Got to Washington a few minutes late, then had to mess with immigration (other than the pointless fingerprinting and photographing rather painless), customs, drop off the bag, and more security, so by the time we got through all that and into the departure area, found out where to go, we ended up having to run. So we ran through 3/4s of the length of Washington Dulles airport. After no sleep. And an 8 hour flight. Made the gate and there was only the woman taking the tickets. She smiled and said ‘it’s ok you’ve got 8 minutes!’

We got on the plane and fell into our seats. Then asked for water. A few minutes after us a bloke (who was behind us in the immigration queue) got on gasping and sweating (probably about how we looked), fell into his seat, and asked for water. Joe and I started giggling. Then the woman beside the other bloke said, loud enough for most of the plane to hear, ‘this poor man has just run from England!’

Philadelphia airport is probably one of the most confusing I’ve been in but we finally found baggage claim. Of course, we made our flight but our bags didn’t. The upside to this is they said they would deliver the bags to us. Fine by us. And the bags did arrive later in the evening.

Allison turns up just as we’ve sorted the luggage and, yea! took over sorting the luggage delivery. Very welcomed as I was about asleep on my feet at this point. Turns out she’d arrived at the airport about 20 minutes before that but spent most of that time trying to find parking.

It appears we picked the day Clinton and Bush sr arrived in Philadelphia. [Joe: all the important people show up at the same time.] So the airport was crowded, lots of extra security, and roads were closed including the interstate. But we had a nice drive back to Allison’s house and got to see a bit of the area.

On the drive we were talking about what we wanted to do and of course we said we’d have to try a cheesesteak. So we stopped and got one as we were starving. These were huge sandwiches. [Joe: mince beef and onions with cheese on a soft bagette roll. Excellent.] For the rest of the afternoon/evening we just tried to stay awake. Determined to stay awake until it got dark. So we sat and drank beer/wine and talked bollocks and yawned. Allison made us a lovely dinner and then we fell asleep. The bags arrived after we fell asleep so we woke up this morning to luggage. Hooray.

Joe says I need to enlighten the bollocks conversation. We were talking with Hal about phrases and their origins that had no meaning in other cultures, even when they supposedly speak the same language, and, as I had brought ActionAid (a wonderful charity well worth supporting – go to www.actionaid.org for more information) t-shirts which have ‘Bollocks to Poverty’ on them, Joe and I were defining what this meant. We were also just talking bollocks as we were so tired.

We are now awake on Friday morning and ready to go out (of course it’s raining!) to see some of Philadelphia which is full of important stuff that happened just over 200 years ago. [Joe: when the Americans finished just ahead of the British in the independence race.]

We are about to do another trip. A short one this time, only a bit over two weeks. But Joe will finally get to see a US football game, we’ll get to visit family, and we get to see San Francisco. Looking forward to this.

Or why Joe hates Brussels parks.

Well, we did a lot of walking this weekend. And I do mean a lot of walking. We walked nearly everywhere. Except out to the Atomium but then we did quite a lot of walking around that. Including the park which is nearby. Well we thought we were walking in the park nearby. Turns out we were walking in some of the park nearby, which didn’t link up with the park that we wanted to walk in. In fact, there is apparently very few ways into this little park we found ourselves in and we aren’t entirely sure how we ended up in this park in the first place. We must have found one of those few entrances. Very few entrances. Because we couldn’t find our way out.

What did find however was, well, interesting. There was the bloke in the green grass area who very carefully stripped down to his jockeys. Very small jockeys. Very small blue jockeys. In fact they were very very small and very very blue. We blinked and decided to head the other way. Toward the UFOs. At least they weren’t blue. Or jockeys. They also didn’t do anything. Just sat there. White UFOs. That should have at least turned or something. That was going through the trees and wildlife gardens which then suddenly turned into formal gardens. Very formal gardens with very formal paths. That led, well, no where really. To dead ends. So we wandered around looking for a way out to the other gardens we wanted to see. Nope, no way out but we ended up looking out over a grassy area with a maze cut into it and a mostly naked man wearing nothing but small bright blue jockeys. This man was now lying on his back on a towel and doing, well, hip thrusts. I start sniggering. Then he starts wiggling from side to side (you really had to be there, or maybe not) and I have to bite my lip to stop from laughing and can hear Joe sniggering next to me. Then in a careful official sounding voice Joe says very clearly “just concentrate on the maze” and that was it. I lost it. I had to sit on a bench until I could stop laughing.

So we head for the maze, carefully avoiding the man in the small bright blue jockeys. I’m sure he’s quite nice really. We walk along the maze and see an exit – hooray. We head for the exit only to find the nice green lawn drops off. Really drops off. A two or three metre drop straight down. No warning either. Not sure how we stayed at the top. So we walk along this drop looking for a way down and finally find where there is an area we can scramble down the wall. By this time Joe is muttering about Belgians and being invaded and it not happening again if they can help it. I pointed out that they’d have to lead the invading armies into a Brussels park and Joe said “that would do it! They’d never escape!”

Well, we finally did. And then went into another park today. And the same thing. Loads of paths but they do like to end them at dead ends. Still it was a pretty day and I had fun.

Bloggin in Brussels day two

Today was no car day, so the streets are full of cycles, skaters, skate boards, and anything that’s not a car. So the all important breakfast menu boiled egg, ham, salami, cheese, and gherkins with the obligatory coffee. [editor: yuck. bread and coffee for me. I don’t see how he does it. Though the cheese was nice.]

We decided to leave Kathleen’s luggage [editor: my one small day sack, he makes it sounds like I took loads!] at the hotel and stay close, then pick it up when time for her to go. We started with a slow walk to nowhere and gradually became aware of the lack of cars on the road, but lots of mad cyclists. So arrived at a park (one of those Belgian ones, you know “we were invaded once never again well not thorough a park any way” ones). [editor: Joe has something against the parks in Brussels. I’ll have to do a post!]

Stopping off at a little cafe in the park, we drank coffee (well I did) [editor: I had orange press and even got a little pantomime to go with it] and watch the cyclist crash in to the fountain. Then to the palaces which looked nice with formal gardens and gaping tourists peering in the windows. It’s had to remember what we did next and it was only a few hours ago! Mostly we walked coming across neat things all the time – shops or events related to the fetes. In front of the Palace of Justice there was a whole load of stalls from organic food to farm animals, a farrier, a greenpeace stand, and even a large pink tram out of which a fashion show was happening. We think the tram left soon after to probably do another show at the next stop!

Passing on the over crowed queue for the lift, we walked down a series of slopes (where we saw the second bike accident of the day) in to more little shops and restaurants, passing along we saw a Swiss restaurant (after getting on to the conversation of fondue yesterday) well guess what? Fondue it was, cheese and hot oil. The hot oil was for me to fry beef in and the cheese was for Kathleen to dip bread. I heroically gave up my salad of tomatoes and green stuff so she could have some thing else :). A slow lunch was held, (but the disaster was no hot chocolate and this purporting to be a Swiss restaurant) so a coffee and tea later we were of to the peeing boy (not even going to attempt (manikin Pis). [editor: Joe has the guide book so he can check the spelling!] The first thing you notice is the crowds and the next is its dressed in white, then just as we are leaving there are two blokes in there (dressed in the same sort of outfit as is on the statue) setting up beer barrels.

We then get to the Grand Place and I do my navigation test, can I get back to the hotel? The square is full of the bands and manikins from yesterday. The crowds were large and a bit of a push to get through, but we did. Then through food porn alley (according to Olly where all the restaurants have people outside trying to drag you in, and the bright light going). I got my rocket going looking for my next visual land mark, but I found it, a large multi-colour overpass. Then homing in on the little bar we drank at last night and then the church and finally the hotel.

Now its about getting ready for Kathleen to leave getting all the stuff together and panicking that she has everything. [editor: I did] So a little rest and then off. We decide to walk as there is still a lot of time before she could even check in a the Eurostar. So from the hotel, out to the boulevard where more entertainment is going on, kids in canoes in the fountain pools and singer in tents and it looked like some of the fish restaurants doing small out door servings; we pushed our way through that and came out on to the main street with a direct path to Gare de Midi and the Eurostar. As we walk down you see the culture change to more Arabic. Just outside the station with plenty of time we stop at a bar for a drink to kill some time. We people watch, the cycles and skates, and the people coming for drinks. Then time to move on into the concrete jungle which contains the station, straight through the entrance and to the Eurostar terminal. As luck would have it (well my luck) some thing is snarled the gates don’t open and every one queues. Some phone calls later the gates open a kiss good bye and Kathleen is over the barriers and in the queue for passport control. I wave good bye and leave to walk back to the hotel.

The fete is still in full swing as I move through the city, And back to the room. A check of the map and the address of the conference hotel says it is not where I think so I go for a look. Registration is open so I go into the main bar to start typing this entry in the hopes of free net access but too expensive beer. A chat to a few people but then dinner is called so most leave, a few die hard remain and so the blog goes on, as one of the people start on the piano which is very good.

Walking back to my hotel the cars are back, and the mood of the city shifts, the events are closing and there are no children in the fountains any more (with or without canoes) some still party on but the sense is that of tomorrow we work. So tomorrow I conference.

Written by Joe, edited by Kathleen

After arriving Friday night on Eurostar and successfully negotiating the mini metro system or underground trams to the hotel, we collapsed for the night. It is very warm and sticky at the moment so a shower and bed.

Today 🙂

Up and breakfast (coffee, juices and hotdogs, with boiled egg and mushrooms). [editor: that was Joe, I had coffee and bread, cause let’s face it, his was gross!] Left around tenish to get the metro to Heysel for the famous Brussels atom (Atomium). That’s the balls building you see on every thing, a representation off an iron atom. [editor: or as the guide book says “an iron atom on steroids”.] The digital camera is playing up again so I don’t know how the picture will look but we have some. After getting out and just following the crowds past the Art Nouveau buildings from the 1958 world fair the sun is bright and the newly refurbished atom is shining resplendent in the morning sun. [editor: Art Deco from 1935 were the ones I noticed but Joe saw the 1958 buildings which I missed until I was in the atom; but then I would note the Deco ones and ignore the Nouveau!]

The tour bus are starting to arrive but we pay 9 euros each and make our way in. First we walk around four of the balls with a few escalators then joined the queue for the top. Had a look around and you can see all the preparations for the next day which included rigging an aerial slide from the top of the atom to the ground. This we will learn later appears to all be part of a fete or celebration which is going on all weekend.

After leaving the atom we walk though some gardens and got a bit lost so cutting our losses head back to the metro. We ended up in a metro station we had passed on the way which had 3d reliefs of people on the walls. One we particularly liked looked like a woman being boiled in a large pot :). [editor: we got a photo. She looked surprisingly calm, though a bit worried, so they probably hadn’t lit the fire yet.]

To town and just a general wander the Brussels chocolate and biscuit shops being our main aims. [editor: well the chocolate one was my main aim. Can’t come to Brussels and not get chocolate!]

Close to the chocy shop we stopped for lunch at a small place called Cap Sablon [editor: we were in the expensive part of town. Yes I like expensive chocolate.] I had brain failure [editor: as did I, it was just good to sit down! We had done a lot of walking by that point in the sun during a rather sticky sort of day] and was totally unable to read the menu but managed to order spaghetti carbonara and a beer. Kathleen ended up with chicken liver salad and some fruit juice. It was very nice and very cheap with coffee and hot chocolate to finish. [editor: Guess who had the hot chocolate!]

The chocolate shop was full but we managed to sneak in our order and get out quickly. We then worked our way to the main square (Grand Place in English) where more of the fete was in full swing, loud bands and manikins [editor: puppets, masks, costumes, all sorts] all over the place coming from one direction going round the square then out again.

Got our biscuits and had an ice cream, watch more of the little bands and dances come through, then start our walk back to the hotel. To collapse and cool down before the evening meal.

[editor again: we’re going out to a really nice place that we went to the first time we were in Brussels so I’m looking forward to a good meal tonight! Shower and meal.]

Well, we’re home. We left Christchurch on Monday morning in the pouring rain, flew to Auckland where we spent 6 hours sitting in the airport, then had that long flight home. Stopped in Melbourne again and Dubai but didn’t do anything interesting. Was going to update yesterday but the internet connection at home didn’t work. So back home and at work and it’s grey and raining. But I’m still smiling!

Got a flight from Invercargill to Christchurch this morning and was met at the Christchurch airport by a couple we had met on the boat. Very nice to be met!

Headed for the Antarctic Centre which was very interesting, then off to see white flipper penguins (little blues). That was very interesting and we saw several penguins, including another yellow-eye. We also saw seals, Hector dolphins, shags, wagtails, and loads of other birds. A very nice trip out.

So going to get some sleep now!