Closing Out A Journey, Sensuously

A lovely product that's out there in the world has taken our photographer's work and turned it into amazing gifts for family. The 7 x 7" book I designed arrived today as a birthday gift for my Mom. It's a chronology of amazing photos of our wedding day that Margaret took. For a Beta, these folks have figured A LOT out. My apologies to readers of both my blogs, I've already ranted about Blurb!

Not only does Mom love it, she praised the design which I did myself- it's so easy to do! Maybe, someday when I have time, I'll find myself actually making one of these for me and David to enjoy. For now, I've got a few more of these in the queue.

This will be my final post, unless I get some terribly brilliant idea that can't possibly be handled by my improvised perspective (with no commitment to topic, I can hardly go wrong).

I will leave you with a sweet parting story. Anyone with Italian heritage should celebrate the romance of this Venetian practice. It sure would be a cool thing to re-enact in a wedding.

This golden galleon (shown here in Venice's Naval History Museum) is a replica of the Bucintoro. On Ascension Day, May 17th in Italy civic, religious and military VIPs would sail this ship out from St. Mark's for a marriage ceremony with the sea.

As part of the ceremony, they would actually throw and then drag a metal ring symbolizing marriage to the sea through the water behind the ship. There seems to be a discrepancy between the Naval History Museum's dating this ceremony back to 1277 vs. Wikipedia's version which places the start date for the ritual at 1311.

Thank you for taking part in our wedding journey. All 900+ photos (2.31GB) worth of images we captured during the month will be coming on-line gradually on our Flickr page, in addition to the podcast of the concert Dave gave in France.
It was an amazing 31-day journey through 10 countries and we're blessed to be able to share it with you in this way.

Ars Longa, Vita Brevis

We headed way out today to see the Artist’s Self Portraits from the Uffizi exhibit today. The Dulwich Picture Gallery is intimate and perfect setting for a very interesting exhibit. Johann Zoffany’s portrait contains a book with this Latin phrase on its cover: art is long-lasting, life is short. We’ll see if Google actually makes that possible (by continuing to host this over time- for those of you non-techies).

Afterward, we found a lovely lunch ripe with people watching at the Crown and Greyhound pub in the Peckham Rye area. Its welcome chalkboards promised “a new nose” as a result of the brand new law against smoking, just days old and in fact yes, applicable in pubs too. Oh bollocks!

Another chalkboard in the pub clearly itemized where all the meats were from and the various codes of animal husbandry that were adhered to in the raising of the animals. “Pub grub has changed a bit,” said David.

We sat next to a group of people whose stories I wondered about, including a seemingly wealthy British stay-at-home wife and/or mother. Other than her accent, she had hints of California all through her- manicured and painted toes sporting gold sequined flip flops (very un-British attire given it had started pouring outside) and a perfect chest (I think fake). In our travels, we came upon this Hamburger Union that echoed the sentiments in the pub.

Afterward, we traveled through the West African and Caribbean neighborhood of the city on the upper deck of one of those large red buses; a welcome mode of transit through the sporadic rain. In this section of the city, the open air markets had cut whole pig’s legs just out in baskets, as if cleanly decapitated from the knee down; buy them yourself and get butchering!

We visited an ArtTarts food exhibit that was…just like home: existential, comical and leaves you with your head stuck slightly to the right as you (poor, unimaginative working blokes) ponder is it art yet?


My favorites of the exhibit were by Natalie Wastnidge who had researched the origins of cakes, including gingerbread, fruit and wedding cake. Wedding cake comes from…oh yeah our honeymoon history premier sponsors: the Romans. For fertility, they used to throw wheat cake pieces over the bride’s head for good luck. More history on that.


Artist Ben Frimet addressed the health and beauty obsession of our culture and how our consumer desires and fast lifestyles are at odds with slow, enjoyable processes, including eating. His exhibit was one of those old fat vibrating machines designed to jiggle it off- only when turned on, it jiggled a jello cake.

To celebrate the 4th, we all met up with Simone who I haven’t seen in two years and had Indian food in the Islington area of London. Later, we ourselves (Stephen excepted) set off about 10 poppers; a rather lame at national pride while abroad.

Travel Zen

“They were desperate for a smoke so they decided to walk.” I overheard this on the Tube stop we got let off at by our cab driver. It seems when various countries implement their no-smoking laws, I tend to be around. I’m also typically around if there is a cold front that’s moved in- I like to keep the climate suited to my needs (no weather powers in Europe though!). Our journey today was 2 hours on the plane to London from Barcelona and 3 hours home from Luton airport to downtown London where our again hosts Amy and Stephen awaited us. Miau! Here they are receiving their chocolate cat tongues from Barcelona.

Train failures and highway closures left us taking a cab with two strangers. But a highway accident closed the entire freeway and our cab driver begged to let us off somewhere on the tube. I must be in a travel zen mode, because the delay just gave me a chuckle. It’s travel!! We needed to have brought the Tardis that no doubt was reeling past us in the Tunnel de Puymorens as we drove into Barcelona day before yesterday.

Gràcia, El Born and Art Nouveau Nirvana

When we travel, we make a genuine effort to get off the beaten tourist track so we can really take a peek at how and where the real people live. Along with a trip up to Park Güell, we had a decadent Lebanese mezze platter for two in Gràcia, a village that became part of Barcelona in 1897. It is a lovely Middle Eastern district.

A tour of the Palau de la Musica Catalana was also something I highly recommend (in a city with many choices). Take the guided tour, wandering through isn't an option. I fell in love Palau images in an art nouveau book, but seeing it in person takes the breath away. This 2,000-seat theater attracts the likes of Norah Jones and Cecilia Bartoli. It is one of the more superb modernism/Art Nouveau spectacles Barcelona has. It was built to house the Orfeo de Catalunya (Catalan Choir) and is a symbol of the rebirth of Catalonian culture that happened around the turn of the century. The resurgence of Catalonia’s native music in the 1960s post Franco was strongly tied to the labor movement.

Afterward, we walked around El Born and neighboring areas. El Born was once a less desirable district (enclosed within the Old Town) but its cobblestone alleys, huge wooden warehouse doors and darkened windows make you feel like you’re in Medieval times. Graffiti and house/techno blasting through windows brings you back to our century pretty quickly; El Born is now a hip and arty place be.

We also visited the Museu de la Xocolata where we found a strangely marketed Belgian chocolates localized to Spain: cat tongues or Langues de Chat. Barcelona’s Arc del Triomf shown here all in chocolate. The liquid treats we had at the museum were on par with our local delights. I’m a chocolate supremacist so it’s hard to impress me. Here’s the real arc.

We ended the day with dinner at l’Orangerie in the Hotel Florida which sits on the mountain most of the way up to Tibidabo. It was a lovely dinner there that prompted David to ask me under what circumstances do I actually like and eat olives (I have an on and off again relationship with them- the salt bugs me). It was this restaurant that gave me the critical insight: when I see menus with burgers on them priced at 21 €- that’s when I eat olives.

I must also note that all over Europe, I have continued to hear various selections from Sting's Dream of the Blue Turtles album. Croatia, Italy, Slovenia, France, even way out in Plitvice Lakes- the restaurant and elevator muzak is selections from this album. I have no idea why- maybe it's been re-released? Its songs are part of the auditory background to my memories of this trip.