You Know You're in SoCal When...

I recently spent five perfect days in SoCal.

...We'd scoped out the little suburb of Newport Beach, Corona del Mar the previous evening. Dawn (my travel buddy on this trip) spotted a little bakery called Rose Bakery Cafe and we immediately decided to hit it up for breakfast the next morning. It was a good decision!

While waiting in the (fast-moving) line out the door, I looked over behind the counter and spotted a guy that made me laugh.

He was funny, you see, because being a Northern Californian, and non-native of the SoCal surf culture, Southerners are funny to me. And he was the PERFECT southerner. Seriously. Bleached blonde, long wavy, kinda scraggly hair with brown roots showing, perfectly tanned. I nudged Dawn and said "Um, perfect surfer boy over there. So SoCal!!" We both laughed and then Surfer boy, a minute later helped us with our order. Dawn hadn't picked out what she wanted (and was vacillating between several options), but I knew I wanted the Chocolate Croissant, so surfer looked at her and then said "Yah, I'm gonna help this lady cuz she's all Avril over there."

WHAT?

All Avril? Dawn and I mentally scratched our heads and stared at him. He waited for us to get it...

***Crickets***

Yah, nothing. Surfer qualifies: "Avril Lavigne? Ya know?"

I got it. "Oh! Complicated!" I said, just blown away by the lingo, laughing my butt off. "Sorry," I explained. "We're from Northern California."

"Oh, okay." came the sympathetic (ha!) reply.

Hope your day isn't all Avril.

That's not a picture of our specific surfer waiter, 

but really, that's a picture of EVERY surfer. Ya feel me bra?

Cruise Pranks, Volume 3: An Empty Room

So I came aboard MS Ryndam in the middle of this prank. What I mean by that, is that I had no part in this prank's planning or execution, I simply sat back and witnessed the events unfold. And let me tell ya, it was priceless!!

Prior to boarding MS Ryndam the following happened:

Cruise DJ pulled a few pranks on a few fellow crew members that were not-so-nice.

Said crew members decided to get even.

Said crew members broke into DJ's room.

Said crew members removed all furniture from DJ's room. (Now you have to remember that the DJ lived in a Crew Cabin... all of the furniture was screwed in/bolted down/part of the freaking cabin!!! So just imagine the planning and cooperation from housekeeping and engineering that would be needed to execute this prank! Akk!)

Furniture was missing from DJ's room. Room was EMPTY. Bare bones. Nada. (All of DJ's clothing and belongings were on the floor of furniture-less room).

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. A day goes by.

Another day.

And another.

The DJ is stumped and without a bed, couch, etc.

Finally, just as the DJ is introducing the night's entertainment, he looks over to the stage, where the dancers should be and what does he see in the spotlight? That's right. His sofa.

The next night, on a different stage: His bed.

And so on and so forth, until all of his furniture has shown up.


I wonder how he got it all back to his cabin?


The moral of the story: Don't mess with people who can get keys to your cabin.

The Tuscan Castle... In NAPA.

So, I caught wind of an anomaly in the hills of the Napa Valley not too long ago and decided that it must be checked out. I mean, really.

The anomaly was this: A Castle. A Tuscan Castle. In NAPA. A New Tuscan Castle in Napa.

Say WHA????

For real tho, yo.

It's legit.

Ever heard of V. Sattuti Vineyard? (I hadn't, so don't feel bad if you haven't either.) Apparently it's quite famous. Well. The owner is a generational wine maker, whose roots go back to Italia. Thirty years ago he decided to fulfill his lifelong dream of building a Tuscan Castle in the Napa Valley. He researched and researched and researched the heck out of medeival Tuscan castles in Tuscany (Where else??), then began to build. His attention to detail is phenomenal!! (for instance, you'll notice the poppies that line the vines are red poppies like those found in Italy, rather than the native orange Californian poppies.) He used building techniques all authentic to their original period: The castle walls are mortared with proper mortar, of lime, sand and water. All of the bricks used in the construction of the Castle are over 200 years old, imported from Germany, Italy, etc. There are Roman Vaulted ceilings in the cellars, which no one in America knew how to build, so he imported Italian builders to do it. The whole place is simply astonishing.

Well, in 2005, the place was finished. It is now open for touring, tasting, etc. There are 108 rooms in the Castle over 8 levels. There is even a torture chamber and a pit of despair!! You have got to see this place!

It's called Castello di Amorosa. The Castle of Love. (Yah, sounds cheesy, but I think Amorosa actually translates to more of a "labor of love" than romantic love... but don't hold it against me if I'm wrong. My Italian is non molto bene, not very good).

So head on out to the Napa Valley. Enjoy the gorgeous drive and the amazing scenery stop off at Castello di Amorosa for a wonderfully informative tour of the Castle.  Just don't close yourself into the Iron Maiden. Seriously. Oh, if you're a drinker of alcoholic things, the tour includes tastings of the Vineyard's wares. I, however, thoroughly enjoyed the muscat grape juice made on premises.

Photos!

An Education

I have been thinking about Education.

I recently watched this video on the need to change the education system in America. I think it's spot on.

On a related note (follow along for a minute as I digress to make my point), I have a dear friend, Mary: (http://marydebastos.blogspot.com/).
We've known each other for years and years. We attended the same University. We worked on Cruise Ships together. We were housemates for a while. We seem to keep popping up into each other's lives. She married a Venezuelan/Portuguese fellow who works in Scotland and they currently live there. They recently had a baby (One of the CUTEST babies I have EVER seen - seriously, check out her blog).  Baby S is already on a fabulous life path and doesn't even know it. He will be educated in languages by his parents (English by his Mama -- Dad speaks it too!) and Spanish & probably Portuguese too, by his Papa. Because of their unusual living situation, baby S will also have multi-citizenship: American from his Mother. Venezuelan & Portuguese from his Father. UK by birth. EU as a product of being Portuguese. Think of the repercussions! When baby S grows up, he can practically go and live anywhere in the world he wants. He'll be able to communicate with much of the world. And all due to the circumstance of his birth, and the hard work of his parents.

Now, contrast baby S' already favorable circumstances with those of the average middle-class American kid, who will probably only speak one language- English. This kid will go to high school. May drop out. May go to community college, probably will never leave his native country and may never leave the state he/she was raised in.

Of course I'm making huge generalisations. Huge. I know this. But it happens, and isn't it a crying shame? The world is Baby S' oyster. The average American kid may never see an oyster.

We need to do better. We need to stop generalizing education, and packaging it for the masses. Parents need to step in and individualize to their children's needs and supplement accordingly.
You may agree with me. You may think I ought to shut up because I don't have kids. Well, if the second option is you, try and remember your education. Think of all that you know now and contrast it with what you learned as a child. If you had simply learned some things better as a child would it have benefited you more in your adult life?

In school I never properly learned how to dissect and diagram sentences. I wish I had. I wish I'd been exposed to languages when I was a toddler and learned French, Spanish, Italian, Russian - when it would have been easy to learn them!

I'm not complaining about the circumstances in which I was brought up - not at all, I was so richly blessed as a child. I had just about everything I could ever dream of. I had food to eat every day and a warm house and siblings and parents, and because of my upbringing I have been able to do amazing things in my life, things that most people never will. But I wish they could!!

I wish they would want to!

And mostly, I wish for my children, if I ever have any, the same wish that every parent ever does: that they will have every single opportunity to become smart, educated, responsible, talented people who offer up great out-of-the-box solutions to the problems the world presents them. I want to make sure they are de-programmed from thinking that just because something is advertised they must have it; that just because a corporation makes something it is better than anything they as individuals can make or do.


If you could change one thing about your education, what would it be?

Cruise Pranks, Volume 2: FOG WATCH

Volume 2 of my Cruise ship Pranks Series.

Fog Watch
Every summer, without fail, dozens of bright-eyed young people join the ranks of cruise ships for their first contract. They join the ranks of "Shippies."

The old shippies are a humorous lot. They've been through it all, seen it all, and they like to share the love with the unindoctrinated.

So there are a few pranks commonly played on newbies. One of which is called Fog Watch. Fog Watch is most hilarious when executed in the Caribbean. The bright-eyed new sailor is called up to the bridge, to face several stern-faced officers. They dress up the newbie in a windbreaker and life jacket and give him/her a flashlight and walkie-talkie. They then escort said newbie to the bow of the ship, where he/she is dropped off and told to watch for fog. If he/she spots any, he/she must radio the bridge immediately and signal with the flashlight (which is visible from the bow to the bridge).

Well. As you can imagine there isn't much fog in the Caribbean. Beside that, current electronic arrays on ships make fog obsolete. Truly. And beside, what the heck is fog going to do to a ship?????

Meanwhile, on the bridge, everyone from the newbie's department has joined the officers on the bridge and everyone is having a good laugh.

The newbie is left down on the bow for an hour, sometimes two or three, on a "Shift" - basically until it's not funny anymore, then newbie is called up to the bridge, debriefed and everyone moves down to the OB (Officer's Bar), or the PO (Petty Officer's Bar) to drink off the humor/embarrassment. (I took my water bottle and hung out in the bar with my friends.)

Sneaking Suspicion

Well. I've got two months + 1 day before my NBT (Next Big Trip). And boy oh boy! I'm stoked. The airfare is booked, most of the hotels are pre-paid, tours have been arranged, etc.

BUT. I'm unsettled. And mostly I wish I was independently wealthy. Because I simply can't afford all of this wanderlust.

You remember I'm writing a novel? Yes? Yes. It takes place in Rome, Greece and Turkey. So in my location research, I've come across dozens of potential locales for said book.

My trip is set to last three weeks. And the more I research Turkey, the more I realize that what I've planned is simply not enough. As it is, I'll be seeing much of Coastal Turkey, the West Coast, that is.

But as I've discovered, there is SOOOOOOO much more!

Cappadocia
With it's ancient cave dwellings, rock formations and hot air balloons.

The hot springs at Pamukkele

 Photos from google images.

Kas and it's ancient sunken city.

Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/timucin_kantar/2577946033/

The Treehouses, hot springs, canyons and ancient Temple ruins at Olympos!

Who wants to start taking odds that I bail on my return flight to the US and go back to Turkey to stay a while?

Cruise Pranks, Volume 1: Underwear

People who know me and know about my cruising history often piece together that living/working environments are prone to pranks. And they ask me what the best pranks I've witnessed are. So, I'm going to write a few posts dedicated to cruise pranks.

Here's the first one I pulled, with a great roomie, Frau Schmidty:

Stealing the underwear

Once upon a time I dated a fantastic guy, we both worked on the MS Maasdam together. He was a Cadet Officer and I was a Youth Counselor. We both had (have) big foreheads. It was a match made in Scandinavian-looking people heaven. Ha!

He was sweet and funny and blah, blah, blah... and also had a fabulous sense of humor and a little bit of a devilish side.

So one morning, after going to bed only about an hour prior (that's ship life!) I received a phone call. I groggily reached for the phone while my roomie, frau schmidt groaned. 

"Hullo?????" I said in a raspy voice.


"Good morning, this is your wake up call." Returned the automated response, programmed to go off at that time by my brilliant BF, who had set the alarm earlier that day, just for fun. 


ARGH!


(People who know me know how cranky I am about my sleep)


I immediately called the BF's cabin. The phone rang and rang and rang. And then I realized that it was 4am, and he'd set the wake up call to go off right after he would have left his cabin for his eaaaaaaarly shift. 


Frau Schmidty and I vowed to return the favor. SO we thought for a while, after we woke up for real, later that morning.


And Schmidty decided to go big or go home. The next day we stopped in St. Thomas, where she bought a skanky pair of thong underware. She pinned a note to it that read "Boys, thanks for last night. XO, Christen (That's Frau Schmidty) & Christy. Then she hung it on their door handle, where it was bound to be noticed by oh, just about EVERYONE on the ship.


Well, that was just the beginning. Our prank was a two-parter. We figured the boys would get a good laugh out of the thong joke and not expect anything else. And it worked. Little did they know that we had also batted our eyes at our friends in the Crew office, gotten a key to the boys' room (totally a no-no!), gone through their closets and stolen every piece of underwear they owned.


Needless to say, after the boy's smelly engineering shift they were a bit shocked to open their closet and have no underwear. (Which Frau Schmidt held captive for THREE days)... Yah. Good times.

What's in Your Sandwich?

I'm not a sandwich person. Never had been. PBnJ made me want to vomit through grade school. My Dad loves a good, thick-crusted meaty sandwich. Bill Cosby on The Cosby Show loved him some Hero Sammiches.

But I just didn't get it. Sandwiches simply weren't satiating.

Until one day at lunch time a couple of years ago, when my little sister dragged me (kicking and screaming) to a place a few blocks from work called Ratto's.

Well. Ratto's is this little, hole in the wall mom and pop Italian shop. They've got imported olive oils, wines, cheeses, and a deli sandwich counter. And it's usually PACKED, so that was a good sign, right?

The sis insisted that I order a specific sammich. Thusly:

Sourdough roll (lately modified to Ciabbatta... tastes buds change, ya know)
Turkey (roasted)
Pastrami
Roast Beef
Swiss Cheese
Tomato
Lettuce
Kalamata Olives
Dijon Mustard
Mayo
Olive Oil
Vineagar

Well. My life has never been the same. It was sandwich history. I now eat them about every other week.

Oh, there are two other places I have since found that have OUT OF THIS WORLD sandwiches:
Oakville Grocery on Hwy 29 past Yountville, CA. And a little place in Walnut Creek, CA called Morucci's. (Try the #1 1/2, it's divine!).

What's on your dream Sammich?

YUM!

Stairs

I had an apostrophe!

I mean an epipahny. Truly. Lighting struck my brain.

It happened as I sat at my desk the other week, for the umpteenth hour on end (my rear end, that is)... feeling my bum go numb and wanting to stretch my legs.

Then I thought back to the glory days, when, if i do say so myself, I had a cute butt. It was a brief second in history. Yessirree I thought about it and thought to myself, Christy, that was in the days of Cruise ships and four-hour nights of sleep and running twelve flights of stairs eighteen times a day.

*DING!*

It just so happens that I work in a building with (Gasp!) STAIRS! I know right? Kind of amazing.

And it just so happens that this building has 23 flights of stairs! Can you believe it? It's incredible, I tell ya!

So, now. Whenever I get that numb-bum feeling, I get up and run up the stairs, panting and wheezing, until I have to stop. Then I make myself walk up one more flight just for good measure, before I head back to my desk (walking, so I don't come back to my desk wheezing and disheveled!).

I'm up to seven flights.

I thought to myself again, Christy, dear, this stair climbing business became a lot easier after the first week on ships. Now that you're (Gasp) thirty, it may take, possibly, maybe eight days instead of seven.  So on I plug. Now in my fourth day of stair determination.

What do you do at work to keep yourself non-numb?

AND, another word on Cruise Ship Stairs:
There are two types of staircases on ships: The passenger stairs. The ones that are lovely and carpeted and have padding under the carpet and wooden hand rails and look very grand. And then there are the crew stairs. Those are the ones my fellow Club HAL gals climbed all day long. (Except when we deigned to ride the elevators - we weren't supposed to!) Those stairs are not plush, nor padded. They are not carpeted or wide and have no wooden railing. Have you ever walked up or down the steel staircases in parking garages? That's kind of what Crew Stairs on ships are like. Steel, slender affairs, usually painted off-white with yellow and blue stripes on various steps to mark landings and lookouts.

And the smell. Oh the smell. It haunts me to this day. Passenger areas on Ships smell lovely. Crew areas (the main hallways mostly, the ones that the garbage carts roll up and down to get to the garbage "dump") smell of oil paint mixed with rotting fish and yogurt and some industrial strength cleaner mixed in for good measure. Yummy, right? Yah. You get used to it.


And, funny things passengers ask about the stairs on Cruise ships (for real):

-Do these stairs go up too?
-Will those stairs take me to my room?

Writer's Focus

I was going to title this post Writer's block. But that would have been misleading. I haven't been posting very dedicatedly of late, not because I have nothing to write, but because I have been writing other things. And those other things have been fairly all-consuming of me lately. I think it's terribly exciting.

I haven't been traveling of late because it's the busiest season of the year for me at work. It happens once a year. We get crazy-busy, bogged down and I hunker down and work, work, work.

(But, good news, I'm taking a small trip in a couple of weeks to celebrate the beginning of my 31st year on the planet! Woot!)

Otherwise, what have you all been up to? And have you been watching The Bachelorette?

I somehow became hooked on the show over the last couple of seasons, even though it's all kinds of ridiculous. And also even though I normally loathe the institution that is Un-Reality TV.

But if you've been watching The Bachelorette this season, you know America has a reason to loathe that tool from Utah, Bentley. Seriously? Seriously. It's just all too absurd, mean and CRAZY for many more words. Except this one $*(%&&*, and maybe this one %*$$*^0. (I don't even know what words those would be if they were real, I just like the way they look with all the fun little symbols expressing my angst!).

So, Men, really. Don't be like that guy. He's pretty much the antithesis of what a human should be. Just so you know.

Love,
Christy

Friday Fun: Decode This Airport Sequence if You Dare!

SFO>JFK>LHR>IST...JTR>ATH>LHR>SFO.

Yup, that's what I'm doing in August. What are you up to in August?



PS, bonus round, here's what I did April '10:


SFO>LHR>FCO>CAI>AMM...CAI>MLA>FCO...FCO>LHR>SFO.



All of those less than/>/ (Or are they "greater than"? Not gonna lie, I never got it straight in grade school.) symbols sure are exciting!

I'll proudly admit it. I'm an airport nerd. I love them.


Answers: San Francsico>New York>London Heathrow>Istanbul... Santorini>Athens>London Heathrow>San Francisco


Bonus Answers:
San Francisco>London Heathrow>Rome Fiumicino>Cairo>Amman...  Cairo>Malta>Rome Fiumicino... Rome Fiumicino>London Heathrow>San Francisco

Phew!

The Berkeley Plantation

In total, my Auntie-Mama Rene and I visited three plantations in one day on the James River in Virginia.

The Westover Plantation,

Shirley Plantation (Which I've visited previously),

And Berkeley.

I've already told you that Westover is my favorite. Hands down. Happily situated and all that jazz.

Well, Berkeley is also beautiful. (Clarification: The grounds are, the house, when compared with Westover is... meh...)

If you shortcut from Westover to Berkeley, the distance between the two places would be a two-mile (or so) walk. Officially though, there are four miles of good dirt road between them. (Yes, dirt roads, the roads have never been paved, and it's wonderful! Paving the roads would really detract from the historical feel of the places.)

Both of the grand houses were built within four years of each other. But Berkeley's history extends much further back than Westover's.

Everyone knows the story of the Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria and the gentlemen (ahem) from Spain who sailed them... Good ol' Christopher Columbus. Everyone also knows about John Smith and Pochahontas. And everyone knows about Thanksgiving. But somehow I kind of muddled Thanksgiving with Columbus, lumping them all into one note in the pilgrim file in my brain.

But they're different! Columbus and the Thanksgiving celebrators. Did you know? They are.

The gents who celebrated Thanksgiving were British, and they landed in America, on the banks of the James River on December 4, 1619, at the very spot where Berkeley Plantation exists today.

Get that! The first Thanksgiving was in December. Celebrated by Brits.

So, after that first Thanksgiving, The Berkeley Hundred  (Named after one of the founders on the Land Grant from England) was established as Plantation, but not in the sense we think of today - it was more like a farming village/outpost. It grew and thrived until an Indian Massacre in 1622, when 9 of the 22 colonists living there were killed, along with nearly 1/3 of the population of the Virginia Colony (Jamestown, 20 Miles downriver). The plantation was abandoned at that point, and it's colonists moved to Jamestown for more security.

A few years later, the Harrison Family (one of Virginia's First Families) moved to the Berkeley Plantation (around 1633). From the Harrison family, and Berkeley issued two of our nation's Presidents: Benjamin Harrison V (a signer of the Declaration of Independance) and his son William Henry Harrison.

During the Civil War, Union troops occupied the home and it was taken from the Harrison Family, who never regained it. It fell into disrepair until 1907, when a Scottish fellow named John Jamieson bought it. Over time and a couple of generations, they restored the house. The family still own the plantation and live in it still. The lower floors of the house can be toured, but the upper floors are private. (Facts taken from my tour, tour pamphlet and Wikipedia)

A couple of other interesting facts about the place:

-It is the site of the first Bourbon Whiskey distillery (ever), created by an episcopalian priest (hahaha!).
-"Taps" was written at Berkeley.
-It was once the home of a Ship Building company and ship masts are "planted" in the ground on the beach at the end of the park to commemorate that fact.

The house sits on ten acres of gardens and terraces. The grounds are exquisite. There are five terraces, a hedge maze and a large park between the house and the River, which Rene and I enjoyed touring very much. We meandered down the green grass, taking in the perfectly manicured lawn and the care given to the planning and grounds keeping. The trees along the park are all planted in beautiful symmetry.

The most vivid, delicious, fragrant memory of my entire life happened at Berkeley. It was on our stroll back to our car - from the beach we saw a beautiful brick arch and decided to walk by way of it, because who wouldn't want to stop and see a beautiful brick archway? Really.

So after perusing the architectural feature, we continued straight up the pathway. Lo and behold! An overpowering, nay, intoxicating scent wafted our way that beautiful May day. 

It seems the gardeners really knew exactly what they were doing.

You see, the path we walked was a wide open flat (lightly graded) area of about twenty feet across. On both sides were planted lines of tall native trees - Pines, Willow, Magnolia, Dogwood, Tulip Poplar, creating a sort of intimate little valley. On the inside of those trees were rows of hedges. Boxwood, and more importantly to my scent memory: Honeysuckle. Heavenly angels! Because we were in a sort of valley, the scent was "trapped" into the little gulley we walked up and it just hung there, so vibrant you could nearly taste it. Auntie Mama and I felt like little bees, flitting around on the path, following the scent from one honeysuckle patch to the next.

It was positively dangerous, I tell you!

If you go to Berkeley, go in the spring, on a beautifully sunny, warm day and by all means walk down to the Beach, hang a left, walk a few feet, turn left again walk up through the brick arch and keep going.  But only if you're prepared to lose a good thirty minutes of your life to utter sensory delight!

Mmmm. That's right. I'm an addict. A honeysuckle scent addict.

 Inspiring facts about the Founding Fathers. It says: 

"By signing the Declaration of Independance the fifty-six Americans pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.

It was no idle pledge... Nine signers died of wounds during the Revolutionary War.

Five were captured or imprisoned.

Wives and children were killed, jailed, mistreated or left penniless.

Twelve signer's houses were burned to the ground.

Seventeen lost everything they owned.

No signers defected. Their honor, like their nation, remained intact."

 Our hilariously spunky and adorable tour guide. When I'm old I want to be like her. Pray that you get her for your tourguide!

 Every old home should have a cannonball stuck in the wall. Just Sayin'.

 Hello gorgeous!

"The Park" - 1/4 acres of perfect lawn. This is the view from the river, looking toward the house.

Ship Masts on the Beach.

TAKE THIS PATH!