Author Archives: Bob

St. Peters/Broadstairs – The 4 Candles Alehouse…Ale and Song

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(Written 8/14. We have did not have Internet at the house we were staying at and could not post)

Here is another pub story. I did not have to ride a bike. I did not fall down. I paced myself, and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

We are in Broadstairs on the southeast coast of England. Dover would be the closest recognizable town to most of you. There are chalk cliffs where we are, so we don’t need to go to Dover. The Folkfest Week is on here, an event that has been taking place since 1985. Our first taste of this town-wide event was last night when we had arrived and were looking for a place to eat at 9 PM. Laura, our hostess, took us down to the town center, just a few blocks total, to look for a restaurant open late on a Sunday night. The main pub/restaurant block of the town was blocked off for pedestrians, and there were a lot of young people in the streets drinking out of plastic cups. Special licensing due to the festival allowed drinking on the street, and there were at least 5 pubs within a 2 min walk from us. We ate at a Thai restaurant and then later stood outside a standard-issue pub, the Tartar Frigate, at the edge of the beach and listened to folk music streaming out the windows.

Next morning, I am reading the weekly free newspapers that have stacked up in the house – this house is only used about one week a month by Laura’s parents – and besides the stuff about Olympics and sailing and tourist events (beachside town remember) I read an article about the “newest micro-alehouse” in the area. “No TV, no music, no lagers, just conversation and good beer,” was the quote from the owner in the local news rag. It is all about the beer. I had to go check it out. As the Fates would have it, this place was directly on our walk from the house to the beach, I could stop by twice a day for a liquid break, like a marathon runner! (Gigi is pointing out that my belly is getting larger on this trip). I did stop in for a pint on the way home from the beach and found exactly what was promised. The proprietor is definitely a rookie bar owner, this project is his flight of fancy– the corner storefront was the size of my living room at home, with white painted bead board wood walls, two thick wood tables with bar stool seating, and some seating along the walls; there was no bar, no cash register, just a chalk board with the beers, prices, and descriptions of the beers by customers. A side room had 4 kegs with taps right in the kegs. No refrigeration, no taps. Only local micro-brewed Real Ale was on tap. Mike, the proprietor, said I could taste the ales before choosing my pint, then tapped me out a to-the-brim pint. Check off “good beer”. Because the room was micro-sized, I was forced to share a table with the 4 other patrons, who turned out to be a father with his 3 twenty-something kids having a pint during their little family reunion vacation. Nice. Check off “good conversation.” I was coming back after dinner.

Laura came with me to the pub after dinner. Gigi declined. She was into a good book. We were going to go out tomorrow night, and well, loud noise and drinking are not really her things. Maybe she was envisioning what we had seen on Sunday night. Not the case.

When we walked in I said to the proprietor, ‘I’m back, just had to go home for some dinner.” An old greybeard dude standing next to me commented, “You had solids? That is cheating!” I was drinking a ‘summer ale’, which only had the word ‘fruity’ describing it on the chalk board. It had just come in and the customers had not reviewed it yet. I wanted to write ‘not your average lawn mower beer.’ (I will try to do tomorrow – I know where he keeps his chalk). Laura had a choice between 6% or 8% hard cider as she is not a beer drinker. That is some strong drink. Ales seem to be around 4% alcohol here.

This room was definitely a 50 years-and-over gathering. Lots of grey beards were evident. There were a few women present. They all seemed to know one another. One man we were talking to had dark fingernail polish, black eyeliner and a single pentagram earing. He was a Morris dancer who had performed today and had not quite gotten out of his makeup. He acted as our guide for the evening, explaining what this group of people was all about. Anyway, the music was the thing tonight.

The 4 Candles micro-Alehouse had been taken over by a core group of folk week performers looking for a non-music-scheduled pub to make music in. They called it a “sing around night.”(Most of the downtown pubs have booked music every night.) Instruments present: guitar, mandolin, banjo, tin whistle, flute, Irish drum, 3 accordions, spoons. This group of people took turns taking ‘the stage’, which meant a lot of shuffling and squeezing past each other to take turns playing and singing songs. The patrons in the room knew all the songs and their voices filled the air. Laura commented that this respect it was like going to church. One bespectacled man who played guitar left-handed seemed to be the song leader. He had a homemade songbook with at least 50 pages in plastic sleeves. We found out he was a retired teacher from Sheffield. He sang a quite entertaining song about how he left his profession. He told us it was from the heart and took about 10 minutes to write. Another character could easily have been a Grateful Dead “deadhead”; tall and thin, grey goatee and mustache, bald pate with small, tight grey ponytail corralling what hair he had left. He played spoons, which really did add quite a sound to the overall music, like a high-pitched rhythm section. Our evening docent, the dancer, would jump in with his Irish drum to add the deep bass sound when multiple instruments were playing. The voice, however, was the core instrument of the night. Twice, two young teenage twins came into sing. There were many people out on the sidewalk. They looked the cream of English man stock – pale with rosy cheeks, crew cut blond hair, stocky. One had his eyebrow stud-pierced. They sang mariner songs, and after their second duet smiled so broadly and gave each other high fives it made me think this was their debut performance for the old guard of singers in this room. They were the next generation of folk singers who would carry on the old tunes.

The evening finished early at 10 PM. An “Alehouse” is not a pub, and the proprietor was licensed under a very old alcohol law that had restrictive hours. Something about getting people in the old days to not drink so much gin and preventing binge drinking – switch to a less corrosive alcohol and reduce the time allowed to consume it. This group was not finished, however, even though it was a Monday night. Folkweek is their vacation time when they can congregate from around England. Sing, play and drink. They all went across the street to the pub that was licensed to stay open until 2 AM to continue, and Laura and I headed home.

Greetings from the Center of the World

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We are at the Center of the world as a vast majority of the planet’s attention is turned to the Olympics…duh. Events. We attended four events – semi-final tennis at Wimbledon, the Women’s Marathon, under 58 kg Tae Kwon Do quarter and semis, and Men’s Volleyball semis (tonight) Brazil vs Italy. Packing four Olympic events along with the normal sightseeing of such a large and interesting city has left us quite exhausted each night.

Tennis. Wimbledon was center court and Jordan got sit on his own five rows behind the “Royals Box.” Our four seats were split into 3 and 1, at first we were not happy, but it actually was a good thing. Our teenage son got to be independent and sit away from us. Justin actually fell asleep for most of the first match – Federer vs. del Potro (which went on for four and half hours). He finally woke up in the 3rd set that went to something like 19-21 games played. He needed the sleep, I guess. Justin is also not much for being a “spectator”, it does tend to put him to sleep, whether it is a concert or a sporting event. (We gave him a coke to drink prior to the TKD event as insurance that he would not repeat.) It was a chilly day, but dry, and the mere fact that we were at Wimbledon center court was a thrill. How many years I have watched Wimbledon; I remember Bjorn Borg playing in the seventies.

Pink Fingers. This was also our first encounter with the “pink fingers.” London has an army of volunteers with pink vests and sponge fingers to answer questions and help herd the masses of spectators. The whole organization seems to be quite effective. We have had no waiting for trains or subways as they open the turnstiles and just let everyone in. Car lanes are blocked off for the streams of pedestrian traffic. Olympic venues have large areas around them fenced off, so once inside the perimeter you have no car traffic at all. We did not attend events at the Olympic park, so we were not able to get into that area- unfortunately. No ticket, no access. The only new Olympic building we went to was the ExCel center for Tai Kwon Do. ExCel is a massive square box of a building that houses several mini-stadium areas of seating built on scaffolding. This is where ring/mat/small area events like boxing; wrestling, TKD and badminton were held. It was very impressive to see the development in this area East of London. We took a ski resort type gondola over the Thames from Greenwich – the Emirates Air Line (everything is branded) – to the ExCel and got a great bird’s eye view of the area. That gondola set up is interesting – part touristy entertainment, part practical transportation device. It connects the concert venue south of the Thames to the Excel sports venue on the north shore. Tonight, Volleyball will be at Earl’s Court, an old indoor stadium where Gigi went to see concerts back in ‘91/92 when she worked here.

Tae Kwon Do. TKD was just OK sports-wise. I had never watched this sport before, so I guess I did not know how to truly appreciate the Olympic level quality of the action. The actual competition was sometimes boring – too much strategy and not enough attacking – often the judge shouted ‘fight!’ to the competitors to get them to engage. I think 3 matches had that Olympic imbalance of one competitor just being so much better, and the match was called on point spread – something like a knockout in boxing to end the match. There were a few truly exciting matches. Only one match out of the 12 we saw had a last minute comeback and win by a competitor. However, this was our first event where we really felt and saw the international audience rooting for their competitors. Flags waving, people shouting in different languages. There was one particularly colorful group of Thai spectators all dressed in traditional garb that went bonkers when a Thai woman won a close match. This part of the event was truly a treat. Unfortunately, we did not get the chance to root for an American.

Women’s Marathon. Last Sunday, we woke up to heavy rain on the day of the Women’s Marathon. Undeterred, but a little tardy, we made our way down to Embankment tube station to see the event. We ended up across from Cleopatra’s needle on Embankment road. The area was quite crowded, 3 to 4 people deep along the fences, and the runners had already gone past once. The runners ran 3 laps of the route, and would pass our spot 5 more times going one way and then the next. The boys got the best view. London has these bikes for rent by credit card, and they have individual lock stands for them. These thigh-high stands were just big enough for Jordan and Justin to stand on, little pedestals that elevated them 3 feet above everyone else and gave them a clear view of the route in both directions. Gigi and I had to be content with quick glimpses of the runners between the bodies of other spectators. It was still thrilling. The rain even let off to just periodic showers and bursts of warm sunshine for the rest of the day.

Being tourists. Here are all the things we squeezed in between our Olympic events: Bob and Justin go to Natural History Museum to see the Dinosaur exhibit and the Minerals room; quick drop in to the Victoria and Albert Museum; ride the London Eye; day trip to Arundel Castle on Arun River near Portsmouth; 3 lunches with Gigi’s old friends at Southbank, Greenwich, Marylebone; bus rides to see the city; Tate Modern museum; walked across the Thames on 3 different bridges.

Visiting with Friends. We have also been able to connect with people here in London. My Swedish friend Per drove down with his family, and we spent one day with them. Gigi reconnected with 3 of her close friends from her working days here in London 20 years ago. We spent a day with the Lopacinski’s, friends from San Carlos, on a day trip to Arundel castle. Their son and Jordan have been going to school together since kindergarten. Our local elementary school is named Arundel, so we just HAD to go for a visit (will be a separate blog on this one). We even spent an afternoon with our family dentist, Dr. Plant. He is a 69-year-old Triathlete who had spent the week prior to the Olympics bicycling up and down the Pyrenees with 3 friends along Tour de France routes.

Today. Day of Rest. Justin was not feeling well so we had a chill day just sitting in the flat with the windows open watching the Olympics on TV. Then off to volleyball tonight.

Tomorrow. We are going to leave London and head for the Kent coast to a town called Broadstairs for the Folk Festival. Our good friend Laura has insisted that we come spend time with her and her girls at their beach cottage. We are going to experience a traditional English summer beach vacation.

Rituals: It’s Three O’Clock. Time for Ice Cream.

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We have found that afternoon ice cream is an important ritual for our boys. They look forward to this, and we have been very consistent about finding them a dairy treat each afternoon. When we arrived in Sweden, we found that 3:00 coffee/tea was quite common. Our boys have their afternoon two scoops in a waffle cone. This might seem indulgent, or fattening, or whatever. Or, you might say, “I wish I could do that, too!” The treat comes in many versions: soft serve with sprinkles, cold stone creamery-creamy, gelato, frozen case prepackaged cones or bars. Sounds tempting, no? All good, as long as you don’t need to worry about your waistline. Our boys sure don’t need to worry about extra calories.

Everything we are doing seems to be unique and new. We have been moving quite a lot. Think about where we are sleeping. At home, boys had the same beds in the same room for a year and a half now. In the last month, they have slept in 7 different beds. Wake up time is variable. Each day we are doing new and different things. No schedules to be beholden to. Ice cream in the afternoon is an anchoring constant (And perhaps the high probability that salmon will be on the menu for a meal).

I am sure that finding more rituals to observe will help us to maintain our balance on this trip. Right now, we have afternoon ice cream.

It Is a Small World – Yes, another one of these stories.

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For my part, I put responsibility squarely on AFS – American Field Service – for my desire to travel the world. AFS opened my horizons when it allowed me to spend a summer in Sweden when I was 17 years old.

We were driving into Kristiansund, a small town on the Atlantic where we planned to eat lunch. No idea about the town other than it looked pretty in the brochures. At the first roundabout, I took a “wrong” street. It put us at a harbor parking lot with a lone wooden building that said “coffee roaster” and “museum café” and had about 40 people sitting outside on benches. It was a warm, sunny day. Since we wanted lunch, we drove on, circled town, saw nothing eatery-wise to catch our attention, and being Sunday the stores were closed so the town looked quite dead. Gigi thought we should head back to the little place in the harbor as I was looking for smoked mackerel for Justin and I (seeing all the fisherman catching mackerel on the bridges picqued our appetite). Turns out, it was only a dessert place and so we found ourselves eating what food we had out of the trunk and promising the kids we could have a treat afterwards from the café.

In the café, the young girl behind the counter spoke an English that sounded just a bit too familiar to us. She asked us where we were from and we said California. Turns out she had spent a year of high school in San Luis Obispo. She asked, “Do you know AFS?” AFS Alum, just like me! That really got us talking. We talked

about the AFS chapter in Kristiansund, and where the 5 other Kristiansund high school students went in America. She said, “I was really lucky to get San Luis Obispo.” Oh, you got that right, girl, you got that right. My grandfather was born in Arroyo Grande just south of SLO in 1891. I spent many weekends and most summer vacations as a boy there at grandma’s house. I told her that we always went to Avila beach to swim and San Luis pier to fish. She then said that she actually lived in Avila Beach. Wow, a Kristiansund-Avila Beach connection!

Small world.

I…Can’t…Drive…60km per hour!

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This blog post is a bit bitchy as I am complaining about the driving.  Sammy H would hate driving in Norway!

View from our Hostel

Norwegian Fjordland. Sandwiched between all those spectacular mountains and the fjords and the sea are all these small, windy roads. My Swedish friends warned me about the roads, but you really have to experience them to understand just how difficult it is to get from point A to point B in the Fjordlands. One of the reasons we set up base camp at Andalsnes, and did not drive to other fjords areas was the fear that we would have too much trouble getting out of them and setting ourselves up for the long drive back to Stockholm.

Yesterday was a doozy. We wanted to drive the ‘Atlantic road’ near Kristiansund. It is

The start of the Atlantic Road.

listed as one of Norway’s 16 National Tourist Roads, and you see the road featured prominently in local tourist info brochures. It was pretty cool, all 8 km. The road hopped along little islands, only open Atlantic ocean to the west. However, it put us on a route that was long and slow.

Toll roads and ferries. Expensive! The other thing our friends warned us about is how expensive Norway is. Not only do you have the food, accommodation ($180 for a Youth Hostel), and gasoline (at over $8 a gallon), the toll roads and ferries will get you good. Two ferry rides and 3 pay tunnels got us back on the mainland and the main road to Trondheim.

Stoping to wave at Maine across the Atlantic

Then in the Trondheim area the automatic toll stations reappeared. We had experienced these outside of Olso. You see a sign that tells you that a toll station is approaching and the cost. Your car gets its license plate photographed, which we were also warned about but did not get the information on how to pay these tolls. All we knew was that heavy fines would come through the car rental agency if we did not pay them. That had us freaked out for the first day of driving in Norway. These auto toll stations seemed to be set up every 10 kilometers or so on one stretch of highway. The tourist information office in Andalsnes did give us a brochure explaining how to set up an online payment subscription, pretty much like FastTrak in the Bay Area. In Trondheim, these tolls stations reappeared, and again they were like every 10 km. The toll is for the tunnels. And man, the Norwegians have bored a lot of road tunnels through the granite rock. Several were 3 to 7 km long. Two of them went under the water. While we were inside, and we had a long time

Light at the end of the tunnel! After 6km, this is a reassuring site.

inside some tunnels to ponder this, we marveled at the engineering feat and really did not begrudge the tolls that were being levied to pay for these engineering marvels. We probably spent close to $100 dollars in tolls and ferry fees yesterday.

Speed limits. I cannot tell you how liberating – in a road warrior sense – it felt when we crossed the border back into Sweden. The road straightened out, it got wider, and the 80 km speed limit sign did not stop me from driving 100 km.

You just cannot cover much distance on a map in Norway. The normal speed limit on the roads in Fjordlands was 60 km – 36 miles an hour. It took us 8 hours to drive from Andalsnes through Kristiansund to Trondheim (with stops of course, that darned outstanding scenery). The ‘normal’ main roads between towns cap their speed limits at 80 km, and they often drop down to 60 km in every town you drive through. 80 km – that is 48 miles per hour, 60 km – 36 mph.

We found lots of speed cameras along the way. The nice road authorities give you a warning with a blue sign with a camera on it, maybe a half kilometer before the camera, but you do have to slow down. Of course, nobody is driving the speed limit because it is so low. The low speed limit must make sense for the 8 months when the weather is crap here, but not in summer time. This was another little stress point at first, because I did not fully clue into the cameras, and since traffic was over the speed limit and I was pacing the other cars, for the first day of driving I was passing these cameras driving over the speed limit. Oh well, I can just hope now that I don’t get a ticket billed to my credit card. With the traffic cameras and the toll cameras, it felt a little like big brother watching me while I drove through Norway. However, as Gigi told me while we paying yet another toll, “Just think of it as the price of admission to see this beautiful place.”  And she was right!

Final mileage for the trip to Norway was 2,313 km…thats 1,437 miles in 6 days! Whew!

Salmon. Salmon. Salmon. Let me count the ways…

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Can I get sick of salmon? Maybe, but not yet. Not that I want this to be a foodie blog, but food is fun to write about, and it is one of the easiest parts of a culture to identify. My family has always enjoyed salmon, and Scandinavia has to be one of the salmon lover’s Meccas in the world. Here are some of the ways we have eaten salmon this month:

Grav Lax. Had this for lunch today on French baguette with sweet dill mustard sauce. This is a favorite of Jordan’s. Grav Lax is salmon cured with sugar, salt and dill. The sweet mustard sauce – hovmastersas – is a required compliment to this fish

 Smoked salmon. Had this for breakfast today with tomatoes on bread at the youth hostel. Actually, it was a bit too salty.

 Salmon teriyaki. Had this for dinner last night. We have been avoiding the ‘S’ word – sushi, not salmon – because it is what Justin would only want to eat. We finally could no longer avoid it. We took a break in Karlstad on our way to Norway, and just happened to park across the street from a sushi restaurant. Now, Stockholm has several sushi restaurants, but Karlstad? There were 8 Japanese people eating in the restaurant, always a good sign. The sushi chef was a woman, which Gigi noticed immediately. First time Gigi has ever seen a female sushi chef, oh so Scandinavian. Salmon featured as the prominent sushi fish.

Here are some other ways we have eaten salmon, not in the last 24 hours:

Grilled salmon fillet. Jan bought a whole, farmed Norwegian salmon for 40 Kr/kilo, which is like $3.00/pound. We filleted it and put one side of it on the BBQ with minimal spices.

Per’s Norwegian Salmon Packets

Salmon packets on the BBQ. Per has this thing for eating food that does not require plates. He loves to serve fish and chips in newspaper cones. This salmon is a Norwegian dish, Per explained to us that hikers would make the packets, carry them in their backpack and grill them over a fire for a meal. You take a piece of salmon, salt it, add dill and chopped veggies – in this case parsnips, carrots, onions, zucchini, asparagus – double wrap in tin foil making a packet and grill on BBQ. Skin side of salmon is down. Simple, but really good, and the veggies carmelize. Eat it out of the tin foil.

The Sauna King

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I remember taking quite a few saunas during the summers I lived here waaaaay back. We would be 5 or 6 naked guys in a sauna seeing who could stay in the longest. Sometimes the ‘cool off’ was a jump into a cold lake. It seemed like every summer house had a sauna. This trip the sauna has not featured so prominently. In fact, we have only had two opportunities for a sauna, and both reaffirmed my memory that saunas are wonderful.

Jan’s wife Kirsi is Finnish, and it sounds like not having a sauna room at a Finnish summer house just does not happen. So, when Jan and Kirsi bought their Swedish summer house sans sauna, they had to build one. They attached the sauna to the house, and it has a glass door. Our American sensitivity to nudity immediately made us think, “This is weird,” as the shower for the house is right there and you can see people showering through the glass door. But, then again this is a private family sauna. Kirsi told us that her daughter Anna asked us if we would be doing a co-ed sauna. Thankfully, no, as this sauna was going to be au natural. The stove was wood burning – none of this electric nonsense. You get the wood smell, a different type of heat, and LOTS of water being poured on the hot rocks on top of the stove. (No chance of short circuits, as is the case with electric stoves). Jan insisted we try the black soap from Finland, which is made from pine tar. Get the real Finnish scent on our bodies. Afterwards, we cooled down on his deck with a beer and dared the mosquitoes to drink our warmed blood.

Our second sauna opportunity came at Stephan and Cici’s house. Per warned us that Stephan is a sauna fanatic, and will sauna until sunrise (4:00 AM or so in summer). We had a 3 family backyard party on a Monday night – summertime everyone seems to be on vacation – complete with taco bar and Albin’s 500 watt DJ setup. By 5:00 the first round of the sauna had begun. It started with just Stephan, Per and myself – au natural. Stephan treated us to baudy sauna songs and also described his sauna. What a smile he had on his face when talking about it. Special wood burning stove, automatic water-on-the-rocks sprayer that was connected to a pull string running on the walls (anyone who wanted steam just tugged on the string), music player in the cool down ante-room. There was a small pool outside to jump into. This was a Rolls Royce sauna. He had built his dream sauna. After dinner, the sauna time began in earnest. Stephan was so elated when we filled it up, no more bench space. It became swimsuit sauna, as we were all not that good of friends…except for Stephan, who apparently always saunas in the nude. I eventually saw him put on clothes around 11 PM.

Stephan’s little slice of paradise

Honestly, a few hours of sauna-ing really does leave you relaxed and ‘floating on little white clouds’ as Stephan would say. I have an open space in my back yard that would fit a sauna house. I may have to bring Stephan – the Sauna King – over as a consultant for creating the perfect sauna environment.