Hard Core Divers
I can hardly believe my eyes. On some of the coldest days of the year, there are still people eager to don their wet-suits and hit the marine reserves, do a little diving. I can’t imagine; it makes me shiver just to think about it!
Signs, Signs
I love signs. The very first sign I remember photographing was in Kenya, where it said “Elephants have the right of way.” This is a couple signs we came upon while walking along the waterfront, and it occurred to me that in this very law-abiding community, there were all kinds of signs telling you what you can’t do . . . LOTS of them!
And because we ate at the Rock Tavern, I keep hearing this song going through my head and thinking my sign says “Thank you very much, Lord!”
Rockin’ Pizza
It was cold, so cold it was even . . . SNOWING! We were in the mood for pizza, and we had seen a tavern along the road that claimed a wood burning oven, which is our favorite kind of pizza. We ventured out in the cold and snow, made it to the tavern, and it turned out to have a rock theme.
It was a very fun place, with a fake old brick interior, booths, a stage – I guess for competing rock bands, but there weren’t any live bands that night – GREAT smells, and great looking pizzas coming out from the kitchen. It was called the Rock Tavern, and they played classic rock songs, some really old ones like from the ’50’s, too.
This is what it looked like inside:
Here is what I had; it was called Evil Ways, and had artichoke hearts, spinach, sundried tomatoes and a basil pesto cream sauce – oh YUMMMMM:
Adventure Man had Ripp’s Revenge, which had kalamata olives, marinated mushrooms and sundried tomatoes – also YUMMMMMMM:
By the time we left, it had stopped snowing and none had stuck.
Lutefisk Dinner
Do you listen to Prairie Home Companion? Have you ever heard Garrison Kieler talk about Norwegians and lutefisk?
Wikipedia gives the following definition, and if you want to see a photo or know how to prepare it, you can check on the blue Wikipedia above:
Lutefisk (lutfisk) (pronounced [lʉːtəfɪsk] in Norway, [lʉːtfɪsk] in Sweden and the Swedish-speaking areas in Finland) is a traditional dish of the Nordic countries made from stockfish (air-dried whitefish) and soda lye (lut). In Sweden, it is called lutfisk, while in Finland it is known as lipeäkala. Its name literally means “lye fish”, owing to the fact that it is made with caustic soda or potash lye.
As I was googling lutefisk, I actually found a place you can order it at Walleyedirect.com and it will look like this:
You probably won’t want to. Lutefisk is what poor immigrant Norwegians used to eat through the long winters. It is cod that has been soaked in lye and then dried to preserve it. It is also incredibly smelly. If you are at all sensitive to smell, you will probably not even be able to be in the same room with lutefisk.
Why am I telling you all this? Some people find lutefisk a rare delicacy; it brings back nostalgic memories of the good old days. Only in communities with pockets of heavy Scandinavian decent will you find signs on bulletin boards like this:
Adventure Man Goes to Ivar’s
“You hungry?” I asked Adventure Man as he arrived.
He nodded his head.
“BBQ? Italian? Ethiopian? What’s your preference?” I tossed out several alternatives.
“Any place I can get some good clam chowder?” he responded.
“Sure!” I said, delighted his wants were so easily satisfied. “How about Ivar’s?”
We had a great dinner. He ordered Clam Chowder and Scallops and Chips, and coleslaw, and cornbread, and I had a crab cocktail and smoked salmon chowder. YuMMMMMMMMMMMM.
Our booth:
Our dinner:
Airport Non-Adventure
Thanksgiving weekend is actually about ten travel intense days of crowded roads and nightmarish scenes at the airport. With Adventure Man coming coming in to meet me in Seattle, I head for the airport a little early. With all the college football games on, the roads are surprisingly clear. I get to the airport early, and . . . there is no crowd! I even get rock-star parking, right by the overhead walkway to the airport.
I can’t always remember where I parked, so I take a photo.
It’s a good thing I am early, even with no crowd at all – his flight also arrives early, the bags come, and we are out of the airport in good time. It’s not your Kuwait airport, either, with the reasonable parking fees. Here, we pay $7.00 for one hour.
It must have been an anomaly, but the airport was nearly empty. Here is the traffic – imagine!
This airport is normally a madhouse. They have done one really smart thing, though. They have a cell phone waiting lot, where people picking up arriving passengers can wait until they get that call, and then just drive up to arrivals, pick up their passenger and depart. It’s not really that fast, usually there are thousands of people so you just crawl along, but once you pick up the person you’re there to pick up, it’s a fairly fast get-away.
We were glad to have a non-adventure.
Not Your Kuwait Gas Station
Yesterday I took my Mom (and my Mom’s car) to the COSTCO gas station, where people are lined up to fill the tank at prices slightly less than the normal gas station prices in preparation for the upcoming long Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
I shivered as I stood out in the cool windy weather, filling the tank. I thought about Kuwait, where there is always a friendly face waiting to fill your tank – “Supreme or Premium, madam?” – at about 80 cents a gallon. I always have a smile when I leave the gas station in Kuwait.
Not so, here. Thought you in Kuwait might like to see what Seattleites are paying for gas:
Not Your Kuwait Starbucks
All the Starbucks in Seattle – there is one on every corner, and sometimes on TWO corners of the same crossroads – are tarted up for Christmas. They have special Christmas blend coffees, they have Peppermint Mocha and Gingerbread Latte, and they have all these adorable Christmas theme cups, and hot cups, for your home and for your car:
Amsterdam Sights
Walking into the airport in Amsterdam was – for a change – fun. They have Christmas decorations up, and my eyes are starved for Christmas. Well . . . . looking now, I see the huge Camels banner through the decorations. Bah! Humbug! These are “holiday” decorations.
And then these! I have never seen such large packets, nor such enormous warnings:
Mr. Plopper
The plane was filling up fast, but so far, so good – the seat next to me is empty! I can tell that the cabin crew is getting ready to fly – they have started closing up all the bins. I’m afraid to even hope that I will have the serenity of an extra seat, the space, the silence – it’s a very long flight.
“I was hoping this seat would be free!” says a long, tall man who has just plopped himself into the empty seat next to me. I didn’t pay for that seat, it isn’t MY seat, but neither am I feeling particularly friendly to this very tall man who sat himself down so emphatically next to me, and then FLUFFED himself up so that he is everywhere!
His shoes are over on my side, so while he is busy shaking his paper noisily (more fluffing) I quickly scoot them back on his side with my feet. He is leaning over into my seat and OUR SHOULDERS ARE TOUCHING and he isn’t apologizing or moving back away or anything, I guess I have lived in Kuwait for too long but this is a STRANGE MAN and his shoulder is over the arm rest touching my shoulder!
Just in the nick of time, I discover I have one of those slipping-back seats, where you put it in the old “full upright position for take-off” but it won’t stay there, it keeps slipping back, although not too far; the seats don’t seem to be able to go back farther than five inches or so, even when broken. Anyway, for the next ten hours, every time that shoulder encroaches back into my space I hit the button that brings the seat back up with a jolt, hitting his shoulder and reminding him to keep to his own seat.
All this is done without raising my eyes from my book.
This man desperately wants my attention. He has discovered his shoes, back under his own feet, and he gives a deep, disturbed sigh. You can kind of tell that this guy arranges the universe to suit himself, and he is not used to being crossed.
He leans across me and shuts the window shade and says “I am going to be using my laptop and this creates a glare,” and I lean over and open it back up about three inches and say “and I am using it for reading, so we will have to compromise.”
He says “you can use the light” and I reply “and you can turn your laptop” and I give him a huge, insincere smile, the kind with your mouth closed and sort of tight. I am sending a strong strong message – don’t screw with me, buddy. I can’t keep you from sitting here, but you are not going to encroach on ME.
I ignore his deep sighs, which continue every time I press that button to hit his encroaching arm.
I ignore whatever it is on his laptop. I think I am supposed to look and understand that he is an important man, but here it is – I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care. You can sit in that seat; I can’t stop you, but I don’t have to interact with you and I don’t have to share my space with you.
It’s a great book. Ken Follet’s new book, the follow up to Pillars of the Earth, called World Without End.
When I finish my book, I sleep for a couple hours so I arrive in Seattle rested enough to pick up my rental car and drive through Seattle. In Kuwait, KLM was kind enough to put big PRIORITY tags on my bags, which, we all know, means “take these bags off the plane last of all” so it took me a while to get through the airport.
It is, once again, L’heure bleu a la Seattle. It may be four in the afternoon, but it is raining and dark, and traffic is slow enough on the interstate heading north that I can even take (very carefully, of course) a couple shots to share with you the thrill of coming into Seattle in November:
Kinda different from L’heure blue in Kuwait, hmmmm? 😉
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