End of (American) Days

21 January 2010

My birthday helpfully falls just when most people are out of money/energy/the urge to give a crap. Early January is not party time...but this year I got a real party for the first time in a few years, which was lovely (above). Brian John organized for cousins and aunts and uncles to meet up for dinner in one of my favourite places to eat, the restaurant Fork in Philly. Then a slightly-longer-than-anticipated walk back to Bob & Liz's amazing city house for drinks and Pandora and more uncles.

The two of us took the giant white Toyota down to DC next day, as David was due to start back to work in Reston. We managed to meet up with old friends for dinner at Anna & Craig's on the Sunday, then with another group at a Malaysian place called Penang (roti canai!) a few nights later.

Holed myself up in the Hyatt while he got back to the business of not being a lazy backpacker. Spent a day with Deirdre at Pentagon City buying ourselves matching trousers at the Gap. There really are things I miss about America. Lunch with the lovely Brett at a BBQ place, then I took David to Dulles and his trip home to London. Two more weeks to kill in NJ while he looks for a new flat and all.

Killing time in NJ with my cousin Cat, which mainly means making fruitcake and taking arty pictures of the Rancocas Creek and drinking at the White Eagle bar. Thrillingly, there was almooooost a fight between Steve and some guy who introduced himself initially as a fifth-generation Riverside man, and only secondly as Joe (see right!). Did manage to cut off the long blonde straw-like hair resulting from much too much fun this year. I know it was my idea, but I still don't like it. Cat dyed it for me so it wasn't two-tone any longer...instead, it is now 'Tweed'. Because your hair should really evoke damp, itchy wool, I always say. There will be no photographs of this.

Finally, on the 20th, my brother and mother drove me the distance up to Newark airport and sent me on my way home to London. I'm torn about this, as it really does mean it's all over. But it's also nice to be home to ale and pie. What a conundrum. New flat is gorgeous, right on the water, and I am happily sorting out our stuff for the forseeable future. Oh, must look for work. Yes, of course. And I suppose that's just about it. World Done.

The End.

(sigh)

Meanwhile...

4 January 2010

Whilst killing time in Jersey, my mom and I went up to New York City for a day. My youngest cousins are about 8 and 12, and it's damn sure time they got to experience the greatest city on earth. Which is also just an excuse to go. Delran is about an hour and a half from NY, though south Jersey looks toward Philadelphia for most things as we're only 20 minutes from it. So I haven't spent all that much time in NY myself. My youngest auntie (their mother) came along as well.

A bit convoluted--the local River Line train to Trenton, then the ever-glamorous NJ Transit commuter train up through Princeton and Newark to the City. To be fair, the girls were as excited about the train as they were about the city. We walked purposefully through Manhattan having a lesson on how to not be a victim in the big bad city, from Penn Station up to Times Square, lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, some souvenir-hat buying for Shannon, the world's largest toy store, Rockefeller Center with the Christmas tree, some queuing up for the American Girl Place store--three stories of doll heaven or hell, depending on if you're a 10 year old girl or her 40 year old father, I suspect.

Tea and cakes at a little restaurant, where the owner opened the second floor for us to sit at the windows and watch the Orthodox Jews go by (and the resultant conversation explaining that they are not, in fact, Abraham Lincoln impersonaters). Cupcakes from the Magnolia Bakery, first ride on a subway train, auntie Ingrid is exhausted and back we go to Delran.

Suburban Christmas vs. 17th Century German Fundamentalism

3 January 2010

Christmas Day was somewhat more relaxed and involved somewhat fewer lightsticks in anyone's nostrils. Brian and Carly and my parents and us. And the cats, who obviously have their own Christmas stockings. Not that I took much part. Aviators. Ugh. The above is the home tree--we've really been cutting back on the gifts the last few years. Seriously.

Over to Langhorne, PA, to visit the other extended family. The very hip Grandpop Bowden and lovely Grandmom Peggy, various aunties and uncles and cousins and their various boyfriends. Which is very old-making, as these are kids who weren't born until I was in high school.

We did manage to recover for New Years, and drove out to Reading to the palatial home of one of my best friends from high school, Jen Gulli-As-Was. If you're going to live the suburban dream, this is the way to go. They have an amazing view and extra rooms and a posh kitchen with American-sized appliances and a fireplace and it almost makes a girl want to be a domestic goddess if you could do it on a grand scale like this. She and her David and their lovely friends and the two of us had a grown-ups drinks do to bring in 2010. Rather unlike the rest of our year, but really quite good. Also they have inflatable penguins outside. 

They're out west of Philadelphia, so we took the long way back and visited Ephrata, PA, home to a German religious community of the 18th and 19th centuries, and a lovely set of old buildings. One of the central tenets of this group was celibacy--and here's news, celibacy means your group dies out. So now it's a historical site. Along the smaller roads are loads of gorgeous old barns and fields and farmhouses, and horse buggies...

On down the rural roads to Lancaster, home to the Amish. Europeans seem to find them fascinating...I grew up not far from here, and was regularly carted on class trips to go look at them. Even as a rather self-involved child, this struck me as odd. A catholic school who took Kodak-Disk-toting children out to stare at a religious community who would, understandably,  prefer not to be stared at and who believe that having their picture taken will do something to their souls. Anyway, we stopped at the unpromising-looking Bird-in-Hand Smorgasbord, seemingly designed to lure in hungry busloads of the sort of people who buy their clothes with elasticated waistbands, just-in-case. 

In fact, it was brilliant. Not only were there loads of real, old-order Amish in there (because although I know it is grotesque to stare, how can you not be fascinated by people who believe that buttons are evil?), as well as gentler variations like Mennonites and whatnot; but they also had a huge buffet full of things like shoo-fly pie and scrapple and whoopie pie and pretzel bread. And right down the road? The world's largest selection of knives. Awesome. You don't get that in Laos. 

The Situation in Jersey

25 December 2009

And here we are at the second to last stop. Sigh. Pity me. New Jersey, Delran to be exact. Where I grew up. Surprised the parents a bit, flopped ourselves down for a few weeks in one place, ate comfort foods like Dietz & Watson hotdogs which really are unmatched on the entire planet. And I should know. David bonded with the cats, particularly Sassy, who actually was more than willing to walk straight across my head to get to him.

We wrapped presents and spent some time with my brother--starting at Arneiri's Pizza, which is also unmatched globally. Mmm. Arnieri's. What do they do to the cheese? It's like a pizza party in your mouth. I once had to agree with a border guard in Kyrgyzstan that I was in fact from Italy when he spied my Arnieri's t-shirt with the map of Italy on the back and proudly insisted that he knew where it was. You can't really argue in Kyrgyz unless you can, you know, speak it.

We also managed to move our Stuff in Storage Part I from one U-Haul place to a another. Which had the overwhelming advantage of being inside and climate controlled. Why we are paying to store this stuff is one of life's imponderables. We just do.

Christmas at Kate & Larry's, time to catch up with the extended family and to never, never drink an Aviator again. Evil stuff. I don't actually remember the end of the evening. So that's that Christmas tradition kept up another year.

Carry Me Back to Old Virginny

21 December 2009

Staying on 17, we found ourselves in Hampton Roads--which is actually the name of a waterway as well as the area surrounding it. The mouth of the James and Elizabeth Rivers are part of it, and the harbour itself empties into the Chesapeake Bay and thence the Atlantic. This is almost home ground for us, as my family spent a lot of time down here when we were kids, and Washington itself is almost on the Chesapeake Bay. Crossing the water into Tidewater took us onto the peninsula that's home to Colonial Williamsburg--and our destination for the evening. And somewhat longer.

The aforementioned snowstorm that had been promising fun for the last few days finally kicked into gear just as we hit  Newport News, with icy rain, sleet and even snow. Virginians being southerners have little to no idea how to drive in the snow. So they generally opt for the 'go faster and beat it home' approach. Insane rednecks driving 90 miles an hour on slick roads is not conducive to relaxing travel. We had been hoping to get to DC that night, but as the weather got worse by the minute, we decided to stop a bit early and plonked ourselves into the America's Best Value Inn in Colonial Williamsburg for the duration. The reasoning here was that we could either get stuck in god knows where on I-95, or in a place we know a bit and has Hooters.

The America's Best Value Inn is convenient to Hooters, yes. Should you ever find yourself snowed in at Colonial Williamsburg, keep this in mind. I know it's just what I was thinking as we dodged traffic (on foot) across a four-lane highway in a blizzard to get to waitresses in slouch socks and orange hotpants. I do wonder about the slouch socks--does Hooters have their own factory for them? Or a warehouse where they stocked up in 1991? Because I genuinely don't think I've seen them in a shop for at least 15 years. Anyway, proving that the universe does have a sense of humour, our waitress proved to be about 8 months pregnant. Her sassy little fanny pack (which is funny if you're from the UK, but means nothing naughty to Americans), was draped around her shoulder as she was too huge to wear it. I like to think I'm not a rude person, but I know I was staring at this poor girl. I suppose they can fire your for not being hot, but pregnant is allowed.

The storm was much worse the farther north one went, although it was mostly slushy snow where we were. We opted to book ourselves in for another night, and spent the grey damp day at Colonial. Lunch at an 18th century English tavern, eating German stew served by a Polish waitress in colonial American costume. As you do.

If anyone hasn't been, I can only say that you really must spend some time in CW at some point. That is only partly because I've had to spend so much of my own life there and I like to share the pain. Actually, it's an astounding place, an entire 18th century town recreated using original and reconstructed buildings, with shopping and restaurants and entertainment and craftsmen and fantastic museums of decorative arts and animals and many hotels. The surrounding area is full of cheaper hotels and outlet malls and one of the best amusement parks on earth. Also the first English settlement in the US that survived at Jamestown, and the battlefield where the English finally lost America at Yorktown. My mother is slightly obsessed and practically raised us in mob caps and tricorns here. My father is not obsessed but patiently allowed this.

After watching the poor boys do their fife-and-drum routine and viewing the excellent Quilting exhibit at the Dewitt-Wallace Decorative Arts Museum (which David especially enjoyed), we went to Target (because what else is there to do in the snow?), ate at a themed sandwich chain called the Firehouse, and went to see the rugby movie 'Invictus.' Personally, I think Morgan Freeman just came across like Morgan Freeman, but the consensus seems to be that he makes a better Mandela than Mandela. The rugby was alright, though.

Finally, on our way up and out of the south. As the local roads were all pretty clear by this point, we attempted I-95, the main road from Florida to Maine. One might think this would be fine, that the one road someone would plow would be this road, four days before Christmas and all. But no. The trip to Fredericksburg, which ought to take like an hour, took four. The road was an absolute disgrace, frozen piles of slush and backups to rival those of Lhasa at rush hour. Argh. I hate winter.

We pretty much drove straight through DC, Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania. After weeks in Texas it seemed odd to be getting through four or five states in a day, but these are all pretty small and the roads actually got better the farther north we travelled.