St. Martin Photo Collection

St. Martin (Week 1)


St. Martin (Week 2)


Blog post to come as soon, blame Kari :p

Not my fault...

Packing 2.0

We still havent finished packing yet. Doubt we will do that tonight since its our dear buddy's bday. Happy bday Cory!

(this most is more of a test for RSS and twitter than anything else)

Got A Name!

I'll keep up the same RSS feed if it still links correctly (though the title will be JK-Take-UK)

Only issue Kari and I see is, do you guys understand what Vaca means and that its not a Vakkuh?

J&K-Take-St. Martin? No...That will never work!

Beach  near the Airport

Like any good American Jew during the holiday season, my family would escape the coldness of the East Coast and go to somewhere nice away from the Christmas Carols and the 3 feet of snow. For 10 years straight, we went to St. Martin.  There we got to experience some Caribbean Sandy Claws Santa Clause and soak in the clear waters. In the morning we will go to the French sides to Le St. Germain for their world famous crêpes!  In the afternoon we would go back home and stay on the beach or lounge around on the patio (similar to the next photo).

Patio view from Flamingo Resort

Some of you already know, but lets just say, Today I'm announcing that Kari and I are going to St Martin with my parents! We will continue our travel blog under a new name (Anyone want to help with some ideas?). So the URL will change. I'll keep you guys updated so you can fix your RSS-feeds or whatever after we come up with our new name.

Pretty crepe I can only imagine
is from Le St. Germain

I'm not sure if the island has free wifi yet but if it does, we will have little to no excuse to not supply you with updates every other day.  This is the first year I've been back since 2003 (I think).

This is kinda like the opposite of our last over the seas trip.  This time, I'm the one who is so excited to share this experience with Kari. 

Got a few things to take care of before we go; bathing suit shoping, oh ya...thats right, and work. :/

We are staying near Cole Bay, which is the
a fantastic view on the island for a
sunset (if thats your thing)

Marigot: Best shopping of French Side.  Mainly for clothes and random gifts!

Philipsburg: Most of the Cruise ships go into here, offers some crazy deals. Tourist trap, yadda yadda.

Orient Beach: Nude City  

Ilet Pinel: Small Island with a huge sand bar.  Fantastic Snorkeling.  It has a 5 min walk from the dock along a cape to my favorite spot on Earth!  

You'll hear from us soon!  For now, look at more of these photos I yoinked from the the internet.

This is where I got my PADI certification.  Fantastic dives!
Waters always above 70.  Whats there not to like?

Last time we did this, my mom fell off the horse as
it was getting out of the water! I'm still LOLing.

Photo of the Flamingo Resort's beach

Front area of the Studio Timeshare

Note: New blogger previewer adds a crap load of tags.  I'm too lazy to clean it up so sorry for the awkward paragraph layouts. on the plus side, they finally added image captions, so now we can explain things a tad better.

Scotland Photos 1/2

First set of images from Scotland.  More to come after I get back the other camera.

JK MIA

We're alive! I swear! When we got to Scotland we were (not entirely) shocked to find that Sandra, with whom we are staying until our flight tomorrow, doesn't actually have internet. She uses the internet at the university instead, and as Jeff and I are not students there we can't use it. And we frankly just didn't have time to find an internet cafe.

So the plan is that as soon as I get a chance, I'm going to recap everything that we did and Jeff will post all the pictures and it's going to be a huge long post and you're all going to be quite upset with me, but that's just how it goes! So now we're going to finish packing and get some sleep and then we'll see how everything goes tomorrow.

We've been having a fantastic time. Climbing Arthur's Seat and fish and chips in St. Andrews and a whiskey tour and tons and tons of walking all around Edinburgh. It's been an absolute blast. More to come as soon as I get a chance.

Love!

So Long London and Thanks for all the Fish and Chips

Day 3? It’s hard to keep track, at this point.

Since Peter and Dan both had work on this morning, Jeff and I planned on making our way on our own, using the tube as we could and walking between places whenever possible. The plan of the day was to see the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, then pop back to get my newly unlocked phone (the guy said it wouldn’t be ready until 11), then get down to Buckingham Palace, walk over to the National Gallery, and then make our way back to the hotel, to freshen up before seeing We Will Rock You.

And, shockingly, everything went as planned! This is especially shocking as we had forgotten our maps in our room at the hotel, and having made all our plans we were quite unawares of how to get anywhere. But it turned out to be a lot simpler than we thought. We made it easily to the Tower of London, bought tickets, and attached ourselves to a tour group. As an uneducated tourist, I was honestly expecting a tower, and not the heavily gated castle that is actually present. We were informed by our Beefeater tour guide that it was originally actually a tower, or at least more tower-like when it was first built, and though it had increased in size and become much more expansive than a single tower, it still retains its name.

He also told us that nobody knows exactly why Beefeaters are called Beefeaters (they are otherwise known as the King’s Guard of the Yeomen of the Guard, or presently as the Queen‘s Guard of the Yeomen of the Guard), and that in order to be considered for the position of Beefeater, applicants must first complete at least 22 years in service of the Armed Forces, achieve the rank of Sergeant Major, and also be awarded the Good Service and Conduct Medal. No mere tour guides, these! They also live within the walls of the tower, in homes once used by the King’s soldiers. I thought that was amazing. And so much better than just a tour guide, once a History Major and now disillusioned with the world, but to actually have someone who is invested in the history of their country, having once been charged with protecting it.

The tower itself is also quite interesting, though I could have done without the line up of all the Kings’ horses. Unfortunately, the exhibit “King Henry VIII: Dressed to Kill” was closed, as it is being changed over to a new exhibit. I hadn’t even known about Dressed to Kill before I saw the sign, but as soon as I did I was absolutely depressed. I consoled myself with viewing the Crown Jewels, which we have no pictures of, but which were extremely shiny. I think most of the stones were plaster models, as having actual multi-million dollar diamonds and other precious stones in full view of mere peasants seems like a poor decision. But maybe HM the Queen has greater faith in her people than I.

After a few hours wandering around the Tower, we wandered back out again, took some pictures of Tower Bridge, and then headed back to the tube. At this point it was past 11, and we were going to head back up to get my newly unlocked phone from the smarmy phone guy, and then head back down to Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, when we got to the phone guy, he had not only failed to unlock my phone, but he had actually completely locked it, so it couldn’t even recognize the original O2 SIM card. Needless to say, I was extremely upset. We had already spent 20 pounds on a new SIM card (the card was free, but we pre-paid for a 20 pound top up so we could call and text people) and now could not even retrieve my old contacts from my phone. The man offered to give us a new phone at a discounted rate, but we declined. I was, and still am, rather upset about the whole thing, both with him and with myself. Not only did he cause us to waste time, but we now have a 20 pound top up that we can’t use. Awesome. I mean, I’m sure we can find someone over here who wouldn’t mind having it, but it’s still damn stupid. And it put me in a foul mood for quite some time.

Really, it wasn’t until we got to St. James’ Garden, near Buckingham, that I started to feel better. Sure, we’d wasted 20 pounds but in the grand scheme of things it’s not such a big deal. And St. James’ is lovely. Rolling green hills and a waterfowl park, ice cream stands and lots of benches. Jeff and I had a wonderful time just walking around, holding hands (we are so sic kingly sweet, I know) and chasing some birds. There were even pelicans! I’d never seen such a diverse gathering of birds in the UK and it was a lot of fun. We got tons of pictures, and Jeff’s favorite can be seen in his slide show (hint: It features a tiny little doggy).

Ok, now comes my horrible confession time: I don’t know what Buckingham Palace looks like. I can identify it only from the men with big hats standing out front, and so we were literally at the gates before I realized where we were. We weren’t able to see the changing of the guard, but we did see them march around a bit and they were wearing very big hats, so all in all I was quite pleased.

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NOTE TO READERS:
Internet was very flaky though fast on the train so I was unable to completely upload UK day 3, Ill post on twitter with another update to this entry later so that you all know the images are up.  Now back to Kari's fancy writing.
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 And the mall between the palace and Trafalgar Square was lovely and straight and full of huge flags, both of GB and South Africa, from whom HM was expecting a delegation the following day. We were told that the National Gallery was just the other side of Trafalgar Square, and having only about an hour before we needed to head back, we made our way there, with haste but with already aching feet as well. Trafalgar Square was the other side of a series of arches, through which Jeff and I passed and then were immediately stopped! We had paused to admire the gate of the arches, when an elderly man came up and spoke these words:

“There’s a nose on that wall.”
“Sorry?” I said.
“A while ago a gentleman told me that there’s a nose on that wall and I’ve just found it and isn’t it quite strange. I don’t know why it’s there. I suppose it’s like that artist who always put mice in his things.”

I had no idea what he was talking about! A nose? On the gate or on the column or what? Finally I spotted it. Indeed, at around head height on the side of an archway, facing (nosing?) where the cars pass by, is a life sized gold nose. There is no plaque that I could see, no reason for it to be there. Urban art? Perhaps. But a nose, nevertheless. I thanked the man for pointing it out, and assumed he would wander onwards. But, no.

“You’re American, are you? From where?”

“Well, I’m from Washington, DC and my boyfriend is from Baltimore, Maryland, which is about an hour north.”

“And what are you doing in London?”

“We’re just stopping here a few days before we head up to Edinburgh, to visit some friends.”

“I like London,” he said, “but I’m more of a Kentish man, myself. In order to be a true Cockney it’s said that you need to be born within the sound of Big Ben’s bells, which I was not, but my mother was, if you believe that. And so she was a proper Cockney, but then she went away to secondary school and got a bit of a posh accent. So when she came home everyone said ‘Oh, now she’s gotten all posh’ which was a bad thing because the whole idea of posh people is that they walk around with their noses in the air.”

I didn’t know what to say. What do you say to this outpouring of personal information? Thank you? I must have said something appropriate, because he lingered a bit more, talking about how he’d never been to America, and then wished us well and good health and was on his way.

Very friendly, these Englishmen.

After that encounter, and having gotten pictures of the nose, we made our way to Trafalgar Square. I love this square. It’s huge and open, with a lot going on. There are people draped on the lions that guard the statue of Admiral Nelson (not, actually, Napoleon), and several fountains with lots of mermaids, and giant steps leading up to the National Gallery.  We had only a few minutes to look around, so after I got a picture of Jeff with a lion, we went onwards into the Gallery. And how I wish we’d had more time. Like the British Museum, I could happily spend days in the National Gallery. Anyone who knows me well would know that this is true of any such place, museum or gallery or otherwise. But as we had only a bit of time, we had to choose what to admire with care.

When we left again it was nearly 6, and the air was quite a bit cooler. As the show was at 7:30, and we still needed to shower and get ready, we rushed to the underground and back to the hotel.

The show was tons of fun. I’m not the biggest Queen fan in the world, and I haven’t really heard that much of their stuff, but even so the show was great. The basic plot is that it’s a post music-apocalyptic world (meaning that the music is dead and/or destroyed) and this team of Bohemians must find the legendary weapons of the mighty Champions (Queen) and restore free thought to all the GaGa girls and boys. Honestly, when Jeff bought the tickets I was a little put out. I mean, clearly I’ll go, if only because I love him and he loves Queen and the transitive property is much in effect here, but by the end of the show I was so happy to have gone for myself. The crowd was really lots of fun, standing up and singing along to the final songs (We Will Rock You, We Are the Champions, Bohemian Rhapsody, etc). And now I really want to listen to a lot more Queen.

When the show was over it was 10:30. This isn’t really a shock, it’s just that we were supposed to meet up with Peter once he was done with work and we were done with the show, for a few drinks to celebrate our last day in London (and not getting lost on the tube too badly). But at this point it was far too late. He had work the next morning at 5 or so, and knowing well how that is, we didn’t fuss about going out with him. Instead, Jeff and I went to a lovely Indian restaurant that was recommended by the man behind the counter at our hotel. We hadn’t had Indian yet since we’d arrived, and it was something we were aching to do. Funny how going to get Indian food is now a touristy thing to do in London, but there you go. And I love Indian food. It was nearly midnight by the time we got to the restaurant, and we were just happy they were open. Half an hour and most of a bottle of wine later, we were once again ready to lay down our weary heads, proud of ourselves for the full day we’d put in, and eager to restart our adventure the next day.


And now, as I type this, we have already started the next part of our adventure. We are most of the way to Edinburgh, having left King’s Cross at 10AM (sorry, no picture of platform 9¾! We thought the train was at 10:30 and not at 10, so when we went to the station we were quite rushed), and we will be arriving in Edinburgh at 2:30. I can’t wait! The countryside is rolling and beautiful and I eagerly anticipate running into the arms of my friend Sandra, who should, with any luck, be meeting us at the train station.

And with that, I’m all caught up!

London: Recap of Day 2: Electric Boogaloo

I know I’m a million days behind at this point. Ugh! It’s Wednesday and I still haven’t told you guys about Monday or Tuesday. I know Jeff has already uploaded all the pictures from that day, but somehow writing about what all happened takes a lot longer. Plus, when we retire for the evening I am invariably exhausted from whatever goings on happened in the day, and so I resolve to write it all out tomorrow, tomorrow, I swear. But it’s always tomorrow, isn’t it?

But it shall be today! I swear! Because now Jeff and I have left London and are on our way up to Edinburgh on the East Coast Rail, and so I have four long interrupted hours to do nothing but type. And so we begin.

When we last left off, Jeff and I were snoozing like logs after landing on London and going to a rugby match with our friends Peter and Alex and then having a few pints at the local hooligan’s pub. On of the tricks to beating jet-lag, in addition to eating lots of proteins the day before (thanks, Wendy!) is to stay awake until everyone in whatever time zone you’re in goes to sleep. This is what Jeff and I did, and it worked quite well. Breakfast at the hotel was to be served between 7 and 9, so we set the alarm for 8AM, and both of us were up before it, well rested and ready for the day. Breakfast was what’s called a Full English, consisting of eggs, sausage, toast, beans and salted bacon. And tea, of course. It was quite good, even though I didn’t eat the beans (never really a fan) and then we were ready to go. It was a really nice day, shockingly, with blue skies and a brisk wind and all in all I was really quite antsy to get out of the hotel. We had wanted to get a mobile while we were in the UK, and while we had procured a SIM card the day before, we still needed to get one of our phones unlocked, and so we went around the corner to a little shop marked “Mobile Accessories” to ask the guy behind the counter if he could. He said that for Jeff’s phone, a T-Mobile Google Android thingy it would cost 40 pounds and be ready in three days. For mine, an old Sony Ericsson from my uni days, it would take only one day and cost only 10 pounds, so we left my phone with the smarmy man behind the counter (I was not a fan of him. Just something about him) and went back to the hotel to collect Peter.

Now, Jeff and I had some very definite ideas on what we wanted to see while we were in London. Buckingham Palace, Madam Toussads, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, London Eye, the British Museum, the National Gallery, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and the Tate Modern. And at this point we had to do all this in two days. Peter suggested that we start with the British Museum, as he knew where it was and so we did.

I could spend days in the British Museum. We got there at around 10 and didn’t leave until 2, after wandering through King George III’s private collection, the Americas, Hindu statues, Persian kings, and Britain in Roman times. It was enchanting. And gorgeously built. Most of the museum is in a classically beautiful way, with lots of marble steps and columns. But it’s also quite modern.  As you can see from the photos Jeff and I took, it’s also got this sort of courtyard in the middle, with a domed glass ceiling, crisscrossed with metal beams, casting a chessboard of shadows down on the marble walls. It’s really gorgeous. You feel like you’re outside, but still pleasantly warm as it’s inside. And the light is wonderful.

So suffice to say, we spent half the day there, happily, and only at 2pm did we emerge back out into the sunlight for lunch and to meet up with our friend Dan. We went into a pan-Asian restaurant chain called Wagamama’s (I love saying that, I do) and had huge bowls of noodles and lots of green tea, and then we went to go and find our next adventure. Now, remember our huge list of things to do? We had knocked only one off, and it was already nearly 3pm. So we made our way to Covent Garden, watched a bit of a Punch and Judy show, and then walked down to the River Thames, where we could see London Eye, the Tate Modern, and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, in addition to other huge buildings. Having crossed the river, we found that the Eye was far too expensive (at 20 pounds a head? We’ll go next time, when Jeff and I are richer) and instead resolved to walk along the Thames until we came to the Tate and the Globe.

It should be said, it was almost sundown at this point, and we were not very far along on our list of things to see. But, honestly, I couldn’t really have cared less. We were with friends, we were walking along in a beautiful city, and we were having a great time. Who cares if we don’t see everything? We hardly need to.

When we got to the Tate Modern, I made everyone stop in the gift shop with me. I absolutely love museum and gallery gift shops, and am constantly wanting to outfit an apartment with everything I find. A great example of this is the tons of shopping I wanted to do at the MoMa, but having no apartment to put it in (yet!), Jeff and I held back. We left the gift shop and wandered around the Tate for a little bit, but it was very close to closing time, and we got to see only one exhibit. Luckily, it was the coolest thing in the world.

What it was, is a giant steel container, like a shipping container, several stories tall and facing towards a wall. There was enough space to walk in front of the piece and into it. It was cavernous. No lights were allowed in, so we stood, dwarfed in front of this mammoth black hole, staring deep into the darkness. Sometimes I think modern art is just play acting at ideas, but this was really quite… I don’t know. Not moving, exactly, but impressive? As we walked in, I could feel myself willing my eyes to adjust, to be able to make out anything in the massive darkness. But they refused. I could no more make out anything in that cave than I could in the deepest dead of night. Less, even. We wandered like the newly blind, arms in front and short, shuffling steps. Finally I could make something out. Floating faces, pale like a clouded moon, and indistinguishable in feature from any other. We had reached the end of the container, the back of the wall, and as I reached out my hand to check, I could scarcely believe it was real. Yeah, we were joking around about ooh it’s dark and ooooh who’s hand is that, but in truth, it was a relief to feel a solid wall. And then I turned around to see the entrance and suddenly, this big metal shipping container, two stories high in the middle of the Tate Modern made sense. What an astonishingly clear allegory for development and advancing into the future. Because as I looked towards the entrance, back from whence I’d come, I could see perfectly the way, and likewise could I perfectly see other people who struggled along the same path I’d just traveled. It was amazing.

Unfortunately, then it was 6PM and the Tate was closing and it was dark out and we’d wasted our whole day. But not really, not at all. We walked then past the Globe, but it was closed. And it’s not even on the spot where the original Globe once stood. And they don’t even know what the original Globe looked like! What a gyp! I’d rather like to go inside, I think, but as they were closed and we didn’t feel like scaling the walls and getting in trouble, so on we went. To a pub!

We happened upon a really Welshly decorated pub (Welsh flags, Welsh beers, Welsh Welshmen, etc) and had ourselves a seat and a few pints, Welsh and otherwise, before moving on again. I was loath to move, honestly, as with any good day’s journey, my feet were tired and I was hungry. But with the promise of food, I would gladly have moved at least to another pub. And that’s just what we did. We found a lovely pub with seats enough for all of us (a rarity at most other pubs) and good food. Jeff had a burger, as he had said earlier that he doesn’t believe that any other country does BBQ properly, or even at all. And I had bangers and mash. Good bangers and mash are amazing and I’d missed them, as they’re hard to find in the US (bangers and mash, for the gastronomically uneducated, are sausages and mash potatoes in gravy. Delicious!). A few more beers, and I was properly tipsy.

Dan had to catch a train back to the Midlands, which left at 10:30, so we said our goodbyes at the station and then our goodbyes again to Peter on the Victoria Line. We were going to see him again the next night, after he was done with work and after we were done seeing We Will Rock You (Queen’s Rock Opera). And so after a really, really full day and with really, really tired feet, we went back to the MacDonald Hotel and feel quickly to sleep.

London: So Long And Thanks For All The Photos

Day 2: London - A Day With The OB Brits

Day 3: London - On Our Own

Second slideshow is not completely uploaded (which contains a few photos I think are my greatest works, including this gem).  Rest to come when Kari's long fantastic entry is due. (tonight?)