Schmidt World Tour 2006

Both Clint and I have been to London before so in many ways this trip was a bit reserved for us. In other words, neither one of us were that keen to spend our time wandering from one tourist sight to another. I also think we may have been a bit burnt out from going to the sights and museums in Paris. Further, our friend Erik from college recently moved to London and so we wanted to spend some time hanging out with him as well. The flight from Paris to London was super quick and it was an easy tube ride from Heathrow to the South Kensington tube stop. Erik lives in Chelsea so we were meeting him at a restaurant so he could guide us back to his place on his way home from work. Erik's flat is sweet and the area (Chelsea) is one of my favorites in London. His place is right near King's Road which is a shopper's paradise and features lots of stores I like, including Molton Brown.

During our first weekend in London, we managed to take in all the touristy sights. There were a lot places I had not been to and so while Clint had been to most (if not all) of the places, he was gladly willing to act as my pseudo tour guide and map reader. From Erik's we walked down and past Buckingham Palace. There were throngs of tourists standing in front of it waiting for who knows what since the Queen was out of town at her country residence. I wanted to run for the hills but ended up walking into one of the many parks to escape the tourists. Next, we saw Big Ben and then went into Westminister Abbey after paying around $20 each (after the exchange rate) to go inside. I am really astonished that a church charges people but that is neither here nor there and, I refuse to debate or pontificate my beliefs about organized religion on this blog. Westminister Abbey is enormous and while it was interesting to see the graves of famous royalty (including Elizabeth I -- my favorite - another Queen who ruled like a King), I kept thinking to myself I paid money to look at people's graves - disgusting!! Also, it did not help that a ton of people are buried underneath the floor of the Abbey and I have a huge problem walking on top of people's graves. So every time we have visited a church during the trip, I am always careful to step around the floor graves. Sometimes this is not easy because it seems they are always clumped together and I am not the tallest person which means my legs tend not to be long enough to step over or around some graves. The one funny notable at the Abbey was they were selling a book attempting to dispell the rumors created by the Da Vinci Code. On a side note, I read the Da Vinci Code while we were on this trip. I have no idea what the fuss is all about. Interesting story? Yes. Well written book? No. The book is total rubbish and written for a nine-year-old. In fact, I think Dan Brown should be ashamed of himself.

After the Abbey, we headed to the Tower of London stopping along the way at the Court of Justice to check out the barristers (lawyers) and judges in their wigs. It was a pretty funny sight for me to see. I can't imagine going to court looking like that or having anyone take me seriously, including my client. Clint was not as amused as I was to see the wigs. We then walked by St. Paul's Cathedral, one of the largest churches in the world, to find out they too were charging admission. We chose not to go in because, quite frankly, we are both churched out. After St. Paul's Cathderal, we proceeded to make the biggest mistake of our London trip...shelling out about $30 each to go into the Tower of London. What a waste of money. The Tower of London was a total bore. The Crown Jewels were not that spectacular and I could not wait to get the hell out of there. Plus it was crowded with tourists and honestly, I hate being around a lot of people. They drive me nuts! What can I say, I am a crumudgeon (thanks Carol). After the Tower of Lameness, we headed back to Erik's to meet him for dinner and drinks. Clint's apertivo creation led to us to not being ready to go out until all the pubs had closed for the night. So, rather than partake in some after-hours club drinking, we ordered beer delivery. It is bloody brilliant. We called up a company, placed an order and within 20 minutes we had some Stella Artois and a 24 pack of Kronenburg without going anywhere. I love it. Of course I love it because then I do not have to be around other people at a smoky bar and pretend I am enjoying myself.

As a result of the beer delivery the night before, we did not get up until the rock hour of noonish. We had our morning coffee (thank you Starbucks) and then headed out in search of some breakfast. We found a great Brasserie (ironic to be eating at a French restaurant in London when we were just in France) and had a good meal. After breakfast, we went to Harrod's. Of course, Erik and Clint left me in Harrod's. I needed new sunglasses but ended up going elsewhere to buy them. That night, Clint and I went over to our friend Jane's house for dinner. Jane was one of our climbing buddies from Kili and so we were looking forward to seeing her. She also had told me that she wanted to take us to an "english" experience after dinner so we were looking forward to the surprise. It turned out to be greyhound racing. So after a delicious dinner, we headed to the tracks. Erik even came out to hit the tracks with us. We had a fun time betting on the dogs and yelling at them to win. Jane's luck was the best that night, closely followed by Erik. Let's just say, my days are better spent elsewhere since I am apparently no genius when it comes to placing bets on racing dogs. After the races, we finished the night with a pint at Jane's "local", the Nag's Head. I loved the name and Clint implied the name was perfect for me. So I fired him as my husband for the evening. The Nag's head's mascot was a black and white cat that had at least 10 pounds on Chloe (if you can believe it since Chloe weighs in at about 300 lbs) and was trying to take up an entire cushion on a couch but for the person also sitting on that same cushion (also sounds like Chloe who lies in the middle of Dali's dog bed forcing Dali to the edge).

On Sunday, we peetered around all day. We walked around Hyde Park, saw the Diana Memorial (designed by Catherine Gustafson from Shannon Nichol's firm) and listened to a lot of different people postulate on religion at Speakers Corner. In fact, Speakers Corner could be an example of why religion will always create animosity but it also exemplifies how that animosity can be quelled in a democratic society -- everyone is free to speak their opinion and openly practice their religion. After Speakers Corner, Erik left us for drycleaning and Clint insisted on going to Picadilly Circus. Apparently when he saw it the first time, interesting people, rather than tourists, hung out in the circle. It was not interesting and overrun with tourists. It also did not help that I had a coughing attack. Later that night, we went to see Nacho Libre. While, I thought it had potential because Jack Black is in the movie, it was not funny. But I did find out something very important while watching previews -- JackAss 2 is coming out. Sweet!! I loved the first movie (in fact I own it on DVD) and so I am definitely looking forward to seeing the second one. Hopefully I can drag my mom to it when I am back in California. Otherwise, I will make her watch it on DVD like I did with the first one. She did not think it was funny.

After our weekend in London, we picked up a rental car on Monday and headed to Edinburgh, Scotland for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. We had no idea that not only was the Fringe festival taking place but also the International Film Festival, Book Festival and the Edinburgh International Festival -- 4 in 1, how lucky are we? We stayed at Clive and Clare's house in Edinburgh. They are the couple who rented our house in Seattle. Their house in Edinburgh is brilliant and very accommodating. Clint and I both felt very fortunate to have met Clive and Clare and for the hospitality they extended to us at their home. Thank you again Clare!!

We had the chance to take in some of the exhibitions and performances at the Festivals. So, after checking out the Edinburgh Castle and getting some good pictures of the town, we headed to a 1960's photo exhibit. Great pictures of the Stones, Beatles and other British icons of the 60's. Afterwards, we headed to the National Gallery to see a special exhibition of Van Gogh paintings. There were some great works featured in the exhibition. I was thrilled to be taking in more Van Gogh works. We also checked out a Harry Benson photo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Clare even joined us for that exhibition. Benson was a photo-journalist and so his pictures spanned from the 50's through current times and featured some candid pictures of the Clintons, the Beatles, Reagans and also featured pictures depicting pivotal moments in American and World history. We also saw some live performances including "According to Jesus" (not funny), "Clean Living" (thought provoking because it was about the buying and selling of emissions) and "Jane Bussman's Holiday" (very funny and thought provoking - why is Africa ignored?).

After our time at the Edinburgh festival, we decided to drive around western Scotland around some Lochs to take in the scenery before heading down to Leeds for the Leeds festival. The drive was beautiful and the Scottish landscape was desolate but diverse. We arrived in Leeds to a 2 hour traffic crawl to the festival parking lot. While I thought we could camp on the grounds, I was wrong. My ticket did say "No Camping." But a security guard was kind enough to let us in for the night anyway. The campgrounds were a zoo. Everywhere you looked there were tents; it was nuts. We think there were at least 40,000 (probably more) tents set up in the various campgrounds. The attendance was estimated at over 100,000 people. We've never seen anything like it before -- maybe Burning Man or Coachella is that big but I am not sure. Because it was so packed in with people, I got very little sleep. It also did not help that some people got to the site really late and set their tents up by banging into our tent. Further, it did not help that some fellow campers were participating in extracurricular activities early in the morning for all to hear. I was glad to get the hell out of the campgrounds the next morning. We booked it for a nearby campground that we saw on our way in and it was quiet, grassy and clean....camping heaven. After showering, we headed back to the festival via the residence entrance -- no lines and very few people. I have always wanted to go to the Leeds and/or Reading Festival since I was in high school so I was pretty psyched to be there. But the main reason we went was to see Pearl Jam! Since Pearl Jam played last, that meant we sat through sets by My Chemical Romance (not good), Slayer (good but weird and hardcore) and Placebo (good, but what is up with the lead singer's eye make-up? It looked like he stole my NARS purple eyeshadow). We also checked out some Brit pop bands with some Brits we met at the Carling, warm beer for cold beer, beergarden. The Brit bands weren't bad but I was unenthusiastic because I was so excited about Pearl Jam. Clint and I split up for the Pearl Jam concert so he could be in the middle while I hung out on the side avoiding the crowd crush. I am only 5 feet 1 inch. I ended up meeting an Aussie named Leanne and so we hung out for the entire show. Hopefully we will meet up with her and her boyfriend in canada for some riding (snowboarding for those who do not know the lingo). Pearl Jam was amazing and I am not just saying that because I am a huge fan of the band. They put on an energetic show that was reminiscent of the days when Ten had just been released and Eddie Vedder use to climb the stage pylons and crowd surf. They rocked and it was worth all the trouble to see them. On a side note, in a past blog I said I thought I saw Eddie Vedder in a porsche, listening to cuts for their recently released album, on 45th near my house when I was walking Dali . After going to the concert, I have changed my mind. It was not Eddie but instead, I think it was Stone Gossard. Travis, you may snicker at me for this but I think I am right.

Clint and I had to get up early Saturday morning after our day at the festival to drive back to London to drop off our rental car. By the time we arrived in London, we were both exhausted and had a terrible time finding our way back to the rental car drop-off location. So we ended up doing a whole lot of nothing that night but I did discover the "Family Guy" thanks to Erik's DVD collection. It is hilarious, particularly Stuey. I wish I had his balls when I was his age (around 1), I would have loved to call my mom an "incorrugible shrew". Brilliant! The next day was spent hitting London's musuems. Specifically, the National Gallery with Clint and the Tate Modern by myself (clint had to participate in a fantasy football draft). It was a low-key day.

DENNIS MILLER RANT ABOUT LONDON

While I think London is a great city, it is no New York. In New York, you can get pretty much whatever you want at any hour of the day, something you take for granted until you travel through Europe and need something on a Sunday. Also, while New York certainly has a concentration of wealth, London's seems exaggerated and stodgy. The English are just a little too proper and stiff for me. Also, there seems to be this over consumption of materialism and status in London. Londoners are very concerned with showing off their wealth and status in society -- it reminds me a little of San Francisco or even L.A. New York has this a bit too but it's different -- there are no cars involved. But it could also be that we spent a lot of our time in the Chelsea and Kensington neighborhoods, two areas with a very high concentration of wealth and luxury vehicles. Basically, if I had a choice between visiting London or Edinburgh, I would take Edinburgh.

WHAT? THE TRIP IS ALMOST OVER?

After our low-key weekend in London, we caught a flight Monday morning from Heathrow to Dublin. Ireland is the last leg of the trip before we headed home and complete our circumnavigation around the globe. Clint is pretty depressed about the prospect of returning home while I am looking forward to seeing my "kids", my family, friends, sleeping in my own bed, using my own bathroom, having a washer and dryer at my disposal and having a clothes and shoes choice.