WooHoo!

I'm sorry that I haven't been blogging as regularly as I had hoped. The days here are longer and more intense than I had imagined, so by the time I get done at night I'm ready for a beer and some sleep.

Last Thursday, Joe Biden came to St. Joe and gave a rousing speech that ended up all over the news. My claim to fame is that I totally know some of the people who were sitting up behind him. :) Yeah, it's a stretch. My other claim to fame from my time here is that I canvassed an 89 year old woman who lives in the former home of Aunt Jemima, of the syrup. I am that cool.

The Biden event was a blast. We found out about it on Monday afternoon, had it confirmed on Tuesday, received tickets on Tuesday night and then handed out tickets on Wednesday at noon. There was a line around the block to get the tickets from our office and we turned away hundreds of disappointed people. There are generally two responses to our lack of tickets/signs/bumper stickers/other schwag that we can't keep in stock: disappointment that the individual can't get anything but excitement that there is that much support, and disappointment, anger and accusations of being "unorganized and not worth voting for". I figure that if your willingness to vote for a candidate is based on whether or not you can get a sign, you aren't really deserving of a sign. We get in about 10 to 15 signs a day and they are usually gone within about half an hour.

This weekend we managed to contact several thousand people through phonebanking and canvassing. It was awesome. We have volunteers in every nook and cranny of our office making phone calls, doing data entry, delivering food, and generally offering encouragement. I have developed a rather intense addiction to diet Coke and I believe that I have consumed more pizza in the past week than in the past three months.

I know this post is a bit disjointed and I promise to do better. I'm off to make more phonebanking lists and get volunteers set up.

Down Home Missourah

We finally made it to St. Joseph yesterday morning and we were put straight to work doing data entry and making phone calls. The office here gives the first impression of being highly disorganized, but actually runs a lot more smoothly than one would expect. There is one other deputy field organizer here from California and two more from New York. Every afternoon a bunch of teenagers show up to make phone calls and canvass the streets and other volunteers show up with lots of food for us. Hard to beat the free food!

If I learn nothing else on this trip, I will take with me the reminder that I need to throw my assumptions about people out the window. Today I spoke to a man with no teeth, who was old and wizened, who wanted bumper stickers and yard signs for himself, his brother, and his "old mother". He was followed a while later by a man wearing a large cross around his neck and a dark button down shirt. At first glance I thought he was a priest, but instead he is a retired school teacher. He talked about having to hide his Democratic leanings through his teaching years because he was worried about what the parents and his fellow teachers would do. He related a story about how when he was growing up he thought that the Republican party was called the "Damn Republicans" as he never heard his father refer to them as anything else.

The volunteers here range in age from high school students to the elderly and I have seen whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians wandering in, helping out, and reporting their excitement about Obama. It has been repeated time and again that this is an historic election and everyone here seems to really feel it. The table full of old ladies behind us at lunch yesterday were discussing Palin and McCain. Everywhere you go, people are talking about it, debating the pluses and minuses of each candidate, and seem to be highly involved. I'm sure that there are those who are ignoring the whole thing and hoping it will blow over, but I have seen more passion and excitement about this election than any I have seen before.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that Obama wins this election and that the Republicans can dial back their horrible rhetoric that is inciting people to shout "terrorist!" and "kill!" when Obama's name is mentioned. These stories are leaking out from the campaign trail and I hope that the main stream media picks up on it and reports it, though they too have come under fire in the past few days. Apparently Sarah Palin is upset at how she came across in the Couric interviews and is holding the nasty MSM responsible for it. The result of her hate mongering was seen today:

From the Washington Post:
Worse, Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

VOTE FOR CHANGE!

You gotta love free wifi! I synced my phone with my laptop last night and lost a couple of the books and some podcasts that I had downloaded before I left home. In order to load them up again, I had to sign on to iTunes and allow this computer to play everything.

We are currently somewhere in the middle of Nebraska and saw a sign for an original Pony Express building, so we pulled over to see it. On addition to a quick history lesson, we found a restaurant with free wifi. I took advantage of it and am all reloaded up with stuff to listen to. Yes, this has been the excitement of the day!

Wyoming was really interesting and I would love to go back. I didn't see much of Utah as it was pissing down rain the whole way across. We stopped by Salt Lake City for lunch and drove by the temple. There were lots of well-dressed people wandering around seemingly oblivious to the rain. The city itself seemed pretty small and quaint, but I can't say that I got much of a feeling for the place.

We are aiming to get to St. Joseph tonight and I have to admit that Nebraska hasn't been too thrilling.

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On the road again...Elko edition

The Obama campaign changed its mind about sending me to Nevada and so I am on my way to Missouri instead. My mom decided to come along with me for the drive out, which has actually be a lot of fun. We have done a lot of traveling together over the years and thus we have a good travel routine.

We made it to Elko, Nevada tonight. I was hoping to get farther, but things just didn't work out that way. 530 miles or so in a day isn't too bad, though the next two days will be in the 600 to 650 mile range. We are aiming to spend tomorrow night in Laramie, WY.

After checking into the hotel, we decided to go to an Indian place for dinner. When we go there, however, we noticed a very popular Basque restaurant next door. While I am loath to pass up Indian, this place looked far more interesting and the hour and a half wait time suggested that the food would be excellent. It was worth every minute and I can't tell you the last time I had that much food in front of me. When you order an entree at this place, it comes with soup, fresh bread, salad, Basque beans, green beans, spaghetti, and french fries. Mom ordered a bacon wrapped filet and I had grilled chicken and both were delicious. There was so much left over food that I wanted to pack it all up and head to the nearest homeless shelter to feed ten people. Truly amazing. So, if you are ever in Elko, eat at the Star Hotel and for the love of all that is holy, split the entree!

Waiting for our table gave us plenty of time to people watch. I have to admit that I was a little worried about leaving my car with its California license plate and Obama sticker out in front of the restaurant. There were a lot of people wearing cowboy hats and drinking bottles of Bud Light. We managed to not discuss politics with anyone until the waitress was clearing (ALL!) of the plates at the end of the meal. She asked if we wanted to take anything with us and we replied that we were on the road and wouldn't be able to. Mom mentioned that I was headed to Missouri to work for the Obama campaign and the waitress just lit up. She was gushing about how exciting this campaign is and how interesting everything is. She mentioned that Obama has been to Elko three or so times and that she finally managed to see him this last time through. She wished me good luck. It was a little shocking and wonderful to find another Obama supporter in what I had thought to be a little redneck town. It's now time for me to put away my prejudices and get to know the people of small town America. I think I'm gonna like it here.

This Is Another Test

...of LifeCast's ability to post.

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This is a test

...of Shozu's ability to post a blog entry.

And so it ends...

We woke up at the ridiculously early hour of 6am in order to drive an hour and a bit to the Shannon airport and catch our flight to London. Fortunately things went off without a hitch and we successfully made it to my friend Sumi's place a few hours later. We even stopped at my mother's favorite sandwich chain Pret a Manger for lunch. After getting ourselves settled in and checked in to our flight home, we set out to explore the neighborhood. Sumi's flat is located a couple of tube stops from the Liverpool station and the fascinating markets around them. We poked around, drank some wine, drank some beer, did a little shopping, had a fabulous Indian meal, drank some more beer and then headed for home. It was an excellent day.

Tomorrow the honeymoon ends but I find myself excited for all that life will bring. It will be fun to settle into our newly roommate-free home and settle back into the routine of everyday life.

Redemption!

I am redeemed! It is now pissing down rain!

More Pics

More pics are up.

Pushing pigeons

Jer is horribly upset with me as the weather in Dublin has been decidedly not rainy. In fact, both of us got a bit of a sunburn yesterday as we hung out on the Trinity campus with my friend Colin and his girlfriend. Today is yet another sunny day, though the clouds roll in from time to time and drop some rain.

We arrived in the city center on Saturday and couldn't get into our guesthouse for a couple of hours. We headed over to a little Italian restaurant that I used to go to and hung out there reading up on Ireland and eating a tasty lunch. When we could finally check in, there was a mix up with the reservation and Jer and I did not get the double room we had reserved. Instead we were given two twin beds separated by a bedside table. Very 1950ish and hilarious. The place itself is upstairs from a neat old pub and is incredibly Irish. I love it.

Jer has been treated to the (probably) boring "tour of Elizabeth's former life". It went something like this: this is the bar where I used to work, this is the bar where I used to drink, this is the restaurant that used to have really good Asian food, this is the coffee shop where my roommates worked, etc. He handled it like a champ. And then we went to the awesomely named Kathmandu restaurant, "Monty's". Ha.

Yesterday we wandered around a bit more, picked up our clean (yay!) clothes from the laundromat, changed and then went to meet Colin and Catherine. After grabbing a bite to eat, we headed out to Colin's parents' house to feed the dog and get in a good game of frisbee. After we wore the dog out with that, Colin suggested that we go pigeon pushing. This sounded like a very exciting new game. Unfortunately, rather than suggestion a game of sneaking up on sleeping pigeons and pushing them around, what he had actually said was "pitch and putt". This is apparently a game related to golf where you have a miniature golf course with sand traps and all that, but no weird castles that you have to hit balls into.

As it turned out, the pitch and putt was closed, so we went to the driving range instead. Jer is a good shot. I, too, am a a good shot and somehow managed to hit the ball straight up, bounce it off the ceiling and back onto my head. I have the bump to prove it. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would and it made for a good laugh.

Today we are meeting up with my second cousins who are here in Ireland for a music tour. They are in the bluegrass band Mountain High and are currently doing a live interview on Irish radio. Unfortunately we aren't able to listen to it, but will be meeting up with them in just a bit for lunch.

It is wonderful to be back here and it really feels like coming home again. And you have to love the accents!

Warm Irish Welcome

We have arrived in Ireland to find spitting rain, fog, and 20-degree temperatures. This is a nice change from Sardinia, to which Elizabeth's burned shoulders will attest. But while the weather is less than sunny, the welcome could give a sunburn of its own.

Immigration agents are not normally known for their sparkling personalities, but ours, upon finding out it was our honeymoon and that we were on our way to Galway, gave us a recommendation of a wine-bar/restaurant in Galway.

We will let you know how it is...

Ach! The sun! I'm melting!

Sardinia really is as beautiful as the pictures that you have probably never seen portray it to be. The water is ridiculously clear and the beaches are made up of fine white sand. It is stunning. Now if we could all just come with our own personal butlers to shade us and keep us cool as we lie on the beach! It turns out that I am too pale for the place and Jer isn't much better. We are loving that spf 50 sunscreen....

Sardinia was described as a place to experience rather than to see things and I do believe that to be true. There simply isn't too much to see or do here. There are a some ancient ruins, which are really cool, and I'm sure that there are a few museums around, though Jer and I are avoiding those as much as possible. On the other hand, wandering the back streets of the old parts of the cities is really fascinating. We are currently in a little town on the west coast called Bosa. It is essentially a beach town, but there is an old center that has been around forever. We got ourselves lost in the narrow, winding streets today and noted both how small the doorways are and how good the food smells wafting out were.

Tomorrow we are headed to the north part of the island to hang out and explore around for a couple of days before we head to rainy ole Ireland. Apparently it is expected to rain the whole time we are there. I'm sure that I will fit in with all of my paleness just fine there!

All in all, we are having a wonderful time. The food is excellent, the wine is splendid and the company is highly entertaining!

Photos

Photos of our trip so far are up at photos.pley.net.

Caves, graves, and really old stuff

After a rather long day of travel, we finally made it from Tuscany to Sardinia. We were on a packed, late flight from Pisa to Alghero, but fortunately the car rental place and the B&B we had wisely booked ahead were still expecting us and open at 11 at night.

After a wonderful night's sleep we made our way into downtown Alghero today to explore the ancient town and see what all the fuss is about. As it unexpectedly turns out, Sunday is an excellent day to explore. Enough of the shops and restaurants were open to be able to shop and munch, but there were not a lot of tourists about. Hanging out in large single-sex groups were elderly men and elderly women, sitting, drinking coffee, catching up, and watching the world go by. Oh, and EVERYONE here has a small yappy dog.

After seeing the old town and making plans for dinner, we decided to head back to our car and go explore the greater Alghero area. We made our way up to the Northeast corner of the country to explore the Grotto de Nettune, which is essentially a cave that you can either access by boat or by 656 steps down (and back!) The cave tour was moderately interesting and the cave itself was pretty cool, but the hike down was far more beautiful and stunning. The water here is incredbly blue and clear and it makes you want to just dive right in.

After making it back up all of those steps, we stopped for the best beer ever and then headed out towards the other main tourist attraction in the area, the nuraghe, which is a really, really old village (15th century BC old) that has ruins in remarkable shape. We have pictures and I promise that they will be up eventually! I found the whole thing fascinating and kept finding myself pondering both how short the people were back then and how much my parents would love to see this. Very cool stuff.

Included with the ticket to the nuraghe was a ticket to the necropolis nearby. These were a bunch of graves createdbetween 2700 and 3300 BC. They were pretty much a lot of holes in the ground that were lined with stone and were really interesting. There are still visible images on the wall. You can seriously get right down in there and explore around, though we skipped that part as we were lacking a flashlight and grave diving in a dress was not high on my list of things to do today.

We are about to head to dinner at a restaurant suggested to us by the owners of the Sardinian restaurant in San Francisco. We checked it out earlier and it looks wonderful. It's been a long day, so I'm off!

"Full Bodied..."

Last time, on Roaming Nobles:

Castles, bridges, cannibals.

Giovanni di Verrazzano never made it back to Castello Verrazzano, having been eaten by the unfriendly natives of the Bahamas. We, however, did.

The foundations of the castle are over 1200 years old, and remain in perfect condition; the castle, not so much. It was destroyed by the forces of Siena when, after a long and protracted battle with Florence, Siena finally emerged victorious and began a methodical campaign of retrebition against all who had come to the aid of Florence. Seriously, they had a book. Castello Verrazzano was on page 163, written in pink, sparkly ink just above "Suzie Henderson in Homeroom". (Don't cross the Sienese. They will remember.)

As the Tuscans say, "when life gives you grape skins, make grappa." So the Verrazzanos built a expansive villa on the foundations of the old castle, where they continued to live untill the late 1800's. When the last Verrazzano died leaving no heirs, the castle reverted ownership to the state, from which it was purchased by some other noble family.

The castle has been producing wine for its entire 1200 year history, which was until recently an entirely manual process. For example, in order to fully ferment red wine, the skins--which are prone to floating--must be continuously pushed down into the fermenting wine. Men working over these large fermentation vats would occasionally succumb to the wine's vapors and fall in, from which comes the term, "full bodied wine."

Nowadays that job falls to robots, who constantly regulate the young wine's temperature and circulate the grape skins (all while plotting, plotting, waiting, waiting). Between the robots, the men who service them, the rocky soil, the Tuscan sun, and the cool castle cellars, Castello Verrazzano produces a fine array of wines. They also produce: grappa from grape skins remaining after all flavor has been removed from them by the fermentation process, olive oil from the groves of olive trees which surround the vinyard, and salami and prosciutto from their own "wild" boar.

All of this and more was recounted to us by Gillian, our unexpectedly British host, when we visited Castello Verrazzano for a 5-wine, 5-
course, paired tasting lunch extraveganza and tour.

First course, antipasta: Salami and prosciutto. Paired with Verrazzano Rosso (table wine).

Second course, pasta: Fusilli with tomato sauce, sprinkled with a mixture of red pepper, dried parsley, dried garlic, and Parmesan cheese. Paired with Verrazzano Chianti Classico (DOCG).

Third course, meat: white beans with olive oil, boar bacon (for lack of a better word) and boar liver. Paired with Verrazzano Chianti Classico Riserva (DOCG).

Fourth course, dessert: almond cantucci (aka, biscotti). Paired with Verrazzani Vin Santo (dessert wine, DOCG).

Fifth course, coffee: coffee. Paired with Verrazzano Grappa.

Impressions:

* First, a note: Italian wine has four grades (actually, three grading systems and "ungraded") of increasing quality and restrictiveness: IHT, least restrictive and lowest standards; DOC, restrictions on recipes and ingredients, high quality standards; DOCG, restrictions on recipes, ingredients, additives, processes, and extremely high quality standards.

The Rosso table wine was very good for its price--about €6,50. Because the DOC/DOCG stamps impose almost fascist restrictions on a vintner's recipes in the name of the "classics", this wine is ungraded. Its recipe is relatively modern--at least when compared to the centuries-old recipe for Chianti. Very flavorful, this wine is best served with spicy foods, which would threaten to overwhelm a more mild wine.

The salami and prosciutto were fantastic.

The Chianti Classico (~€13) and Riserva (~€26) were also very good, though I doubt the Riserva was twice as good as the Classico; buy two bottles of the Classico and be better off than with one of the Riserva.

So, you're at a mountaintop villa, being served estate wine, and they
come out with spiral pasta and red sauce, and you're like, "Pssh? Thanks, Chef Boyaredee." But try this at home: mix up one part each of crushed red pepper, dried parsley, and dried garlic. Or maybe two parts parsley. Sprinkle on pasta. Salt heavily. Delicious.

After the main course, our hosts brought out plates of Parma cheese, and instructed us to place our spoons on our plates. They then came around and poured a single spoonfull of balsamic vinegar into each. It was thick like hot maple syrup, and more sweet than sour. And at €48 per 100 ml, you could make the worlds most expensive salad dressing. (If you do, pour it over a salad of spinach, mint, strawberries, and goat cheese. Yum!)

Vin Santo is a local Tuscan desert wine, made at home to serve to guests. Apparently the Pope visited Tuscany in the 13th century and after being served the drink declared that it tasted like God's own tears. (I know what you were thinking: that he banned it for encouraging salacious thoughts. I was thinking the same thing. But no, he was an alcoholic. And probably had like 18 mistresses.) So that humble, homemade dessert wine is now served at communion in Tuscany, and called "vin santo", or "holy wine". And of course it now falls under the jurisdiction of those perfectionists at the DOCG.

Cantucci (or in English: "biscotti") is meant to be dunked in vin santo, never coffee. However, both the wine and the cookie tasted better separately. The sweetness of the cantucci inhibited the same of the vin santo, leaving only alcohol and a slight astringent flavor. However, perhaps that's your thing. In which case...

Grappa is a testament to that Italian efficiency which Elizabeth mentioned. Why throw away that stinking mass of used grape skins when you can extract more alcohol from it? After enough fermentation and distillation, you get this flavorless, astringent alcohol which is better used for disinfection or paint removal than drinking. And then you put it in your coffee! Caffé correcto: coffee which has been corrected by the addiction of grappa. Or: a method of rendering grappa slightly less offensive. Or: a low-calorie alternative to rum & coke for getting your caffinated alcohol on.

All in all, t'was a fantastic lunch.

"Well marinated..."

Yesterday we ventured just north of Greve in Chianti to the castle-cum-winery of Castello di Verrazzano, a 1200 year old hilltop castle, winery, olive oilery, and boar farm.

New Yorkers might recognize the name of Giovanni Di Verrazzano, as New York named the Staten Island Narrows bridge after the Italian who discovered New York harbor in 1527.

(Giovanni met an untimely end amongst the cannibals of the Bahamas, for whom he made a tasty Italian stew. His boat was the first to carry wine instead of beer to the New World, and was described as "well marinated.")

More later...

Tasting Notes

Eliz: "A little tart but not dry; sweet but not clingy."

Jer: "Not unlike some of my ex-es."

The hyper-efficiency of the Italians....Who knew?

Our bags arrived safely the same night we did. Unfortunately, instead of being delivered to the hotel that was about 2km from the airport, they were delivered to our villa in Tuscany. Oops. At least they turned up and it was a relief to get into clean clothes four days after we left San Francisco!

Pisa was a lot more interesting than I expected it to be. I was expecting a tourist trap (it was) with a goofy, slightly tipped over tower. It was indeed that, but it was a beautiful place and a great way to start the holiday. In the end, we did take a couple of requisite tower holding pictures and a couple other pictures of us holding up other buildings in the area. We amuse ourselves endlessly. We did a little shopping for essentials like toothpaste and deoderant and some other odds and ends and then we pretty much sat around and ate. It was lovely.

We arrived at our villa near Greve in Chianti on Saturday afternoon, rejoiced at seeing our luggage, and then headed out to explore the area. We rented an Alph Romero and Jer is having a blast driving around the narrow roads and tight turns of the Tuscan countryside. Jer wants it made very clear that this is an AR 147 turbo diesel, for those that care (Scott).

We had intended to tour around some of the wineries in the area, but have found a shop in central Greve that has over 1200 different wines and has a huge tasting set-up. The tastings are dispensed from a big robot that holds about twenty bottles of wine. You buy a smart card and then stick it in the robo-sommolier and press the button that corresponds with the wine you want to try. There is a place like this in San Francisco, but we haven't been there yet. Now that we know about the radness of wine-dispensing robots, we will have to make a trip! We probably should make it out to the countryside, but having your choice of several hundred wines at once is tough to give up.

Today we are in Sienna, which is full of lovely old buildings, churches and about a thousand annoying tourists. We, of course, are the good ones! :D This is a beautiful city with lots of narrow, steep, and windy streets and we have been losing ourselves in the back alleys. We are only here for the day, so we want to see as much of it as possible and soak up the culture.

We will add pictures as soon as we can. We forgot the camera cable today. Oops.

We Made It! Mostly....

Well, Jer and I successfully made it to Pisa, Italy last night after about 20 hours of travel. Unfortunately, our bags were not so lucky and have yet to make an appearance. We do have toothbrushes and a small change of clothes, so it is not the end of the world!

After we arrived and checked into our cute little hotel, we wandered off to explore the town a little. Pisa is very cute and very Italian and has some excellent food! I see a couple of week full of tasty pasta dishes and fine wine in our future.

For some reason, there are not a lot of tourists around, so we went and checked out the Leaning tower (it is seriously crooked!) and the accompanying cathedral. We forgot to take the camera with us, but will try to go back today and get the necessary "I'm holding up the tower!" pic. Or not.