Inspiration: Condé Nast Traveler

Today the cold water of the pool as we cleaned the filters reminded me of an article in a recent issue of Condé Nast Traveler.  This led me to decide to write about some things that give me ideas about places I'd like to visit, since for the moment my ability to travel is curtailed by the fact that it's bleedin' expensive to do so here in the States.  So here we go with a new series, brilliantly titled "Inspiration."

Traveler is not really a magazine aimed at me, or even the kind of traveler I want to be.  To clarify, it's a travel magazine for people who have lots of expendable income (which I don't, but would like to), and who are willing to go all-out on their holidays.  I think that even if I did have tons of money to spend, I'd still be hesitant to use it to stay in top-end resorts and dine at five-star restaurants.  You know me, I'd rather just buy a bag of rolls and carry them around all day, or have five euro worth of gelato and call that dinner.  But even if I'm not in their target demographic, there are plenty of things to peruse.  There are lots of pretty pictures, there's practical advice about gear and packing and tours and things, there are ads for different destinations, products, and services (including ones for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which looks pretty sweet), and there are lots of pretty pictures.  Who's not a sucker for pretty pictures?  If you said you're not, you're lying.

So if you're looking for the best place to buy precious stones or advice about which cruise is right for you, or if you're just looking for an idea about how the other half lives, pick up an issue of Traveler.  Who knows, maybe one day they'll feature the SK in the "Where Are You?" contest and I'll win a fabulous trip.  Check this space for updates until then.

By the way, the article that the pool reminded me about is from this month's issue.  Titled "I Am the Walrus" by Peter Savodnik, it's about taking a "walrus plunge" in Arctic Russia.  The article's on Savodnik's personal site here.

Wish List Addendum: Medieval English Cathedrals

A few years ago I was watching "The Worst Jobs in History," a series I highly recommend, wherein the host, Tony Robinson, mentioned that there are 24 medieval cathedrals in Britain. Being given a number immediately translated into having a new goal: I will visit all 24 of these cathedrals.  Since that time, I've been to one of them (the last on the list), so I'm that much closer to achieving my goal.

The following list is based on what I've been able to glean from different websites (like this one and this one), because I haven't found an "official" list of these medieval cathedrals.  A few of them have remarkable features, upon which I shall indeed remark.  

23 More-or-Less Medieval Cathedrals of England (I Guess the 24 Either Counts Westminster Abbey, Which Was a Cathedral for 10 Years, or the St Paul's that Burned in the London Fire of 1666)

Bath
Canterbury: Canterbury Cathedral is the site of the murder and consequent shrine of St Thomas à Becket.  Because of this, it's the place to which Chaucer and the pilgrims are traveling in "The Canterbury Tales."  It's also where the Black Prince is buried.
Carlisle
Chelmsford 
Chichester
Christ Church Oxford
Durham: The Venerable Bede is buried here.
Ely 
Exeter 
Gloucester 
Hereford: The cathedral is home to the Hereford Mappamundi, the best extant example of medieval English cartography.
Lichfield 
Lincoln 
Norwich
Peterborough: Catherine of Aragon is buried in the churchyard.
Rochester 
Salisbury: Home to an original (1215) copy of the Magna Carta.
Southwark: Shakespeare attended services at this cathedral, which now has a memorial to him and a special service each year on his birthday.  John Harvard, who would later found a college in Massachusetts, was baptized here.
St Albans
Wells: Wells Cathedral features scissor arches, and according to my cursory Google search, it may be the only place in the whole wide world with Gothic scissor arches.  Furthermore, Hot Fuzz was filmed in Wells, director Edgar Wright's hometown, and the cathedral towers were painted out of many scenes.
Winchester: Jane Austen is buried here.
Worcester 
York

(In regards to the title of the list, Westminster Abbey currently isn't a cathedral [bishop's seat].  There is a Westminster Cathedral in London, but it was built in the 19th century, and who cares about the 19th century.)
 
Related Sites But Also Not Technically Cathedrals 

Battle Abbey: Founded by William the Conqueror in 1070 on the site of the Battle of Hastings.
Fountains Abbey: The gorgeous ruins of a monastery in Yorkshire, once again brought low by the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Henry VIII's plundering and sale of Catholic sites during the English Reformation.  I could get quite upset with Henry if I thought about the Dissolution too much; same goes for Cromwell after the Civil War.

Wish List III

Time for the biennial wish list update!  Instead of listing places alphabetically, this time we're going to do it by country.

* UNESCO World Heritage Sites
# new places

AUSTRALIA

AUSTRIA 
Hainburg an der Donau# 
Marchegg

BELGIUM 
Bruges*#

CANADA 
Banff National Park#
Calgary Stampede#
L'Anse aux Meadows*
Montréal 
Nova Scotia
Prince Edward Island
Québec City*#
Queen Charlotte Islands 
Vancouver

CHILE 
Valparaíso*

CROATIA 
Plitvice Lakes*#

EGYPT
Giza*

FINLAND 
Suomenlinna*#

FRANCE 
Annecy# 
Avignon*#
Basilica of Saint Denis# 
Bayeux Tapestry
Brittany
Carcassonne*
Chartres Cathedral*#
Dordogne River Valley
Mont Saint Michel* 
Normandy
Provins*# 
Rouen#  
Strasbourg

GERMANY 
Aachen Cathedral*# 
Wittenberg in 2017

GREECE

ICELAND

INDIA 
Shimla*

ISRAEL 
Jerusalem*

JAMAICA 

KENYA 

the NETHERLANDS

NEW ZEALAND

NORWAY 
Bergen#
Borgund Stave Church#
Urnes Stave Church*#
Viking Ship Museum#

POLAND 
Częstochowa#
Malbork Castle*

RUSSIA 
Lake Baikal*#
Siberia

SPAIN 
Ávila*#
Santiago de Compostela*
Toledo*# 
walk at least 100 kilometers of the Santiago pilgrimage route*#

SWITZERLAND 
Lucerne#

SYRIA 
Krak des Chevaliers*

TURKEY 
Istanbul*#

UK 
all the medieval cathedrals in England which I shall discuss in a separate post 
Battle Abbey and Hastings battlefield# 
Berwick-upon-Tweed#
Cambridge#
Canterbury* 
Channel Islands#
Cornwall#
Forest of Dean# 
Fountains Abbey# 
Greenwich*#
Hadrian's Wall*# 
Iona 
Isle of Skye#
Lindisfarne
Oxford#
Stonehenge*
walk the pilgrimage route from London to Canterbury Cathedral
Wearmouth-Jarrow twin monastery# 

USA 
Alaska
Aspen# 
Badlands National Park 
Bethany Beach
Denali National Park 
drive Route 66 between Chicago and Los Angeles 
Dry Tortugas National Park 
Everglades National Park*
Florida Keys
Hawaii 
Louisiana 
Minnesota
Mount Rushmore 
Santa Fe 
Sitka 
St. Augustine 
Texas 
Vermont 
Wyoming
Yellowstone National Park*

INTERNATIONAL/MULTI-NATIONAL 
aurora borealis
bears
fjords 
glaciers
midnight sun 
Niagara Falls 
polar bears
Rocky Mountains 
Victoria Falls* 
zebras

Watch This Video, Part II

Look at how beautiful Slovakia is!  Well done, whoever made this ad.

Here is a Website for You to Peruse

from ICHC, of course

My ma alerted me to a new website that she came across the other day.  It's called Historvius, and you can use it to find historic sites to visit around the world.  You can search by country, time period, or even historical figure related to a site.  Visitors can also upload sites not yet listed; there are currently no Slovak and only three Czech places listed, but you can rest assured that I've already uploaded one as a test and will upload more once the first's been accepted.  Right now Historvius is in beta, so things may change on the site as time goes by, but I encourage you to check it out.

Guláš O'Clock (Pacific Time)

Last month when we had visitors and my brother came home, I decided to attempt to make guláš.  It was a bit daunting to think about being my own guláš master, because I didn't want to screw it up.  But with Rudy's excellent training and my brother's superior cooking skills it turned out really well.  I was quite pleased.

The real obstacle to making genuine guláš wasn't the ingredients--I brought several packets of guláš spice back with me--but the cooking itself.   It's just not possible to build a fire in the backyard, and even if it was, we don't have the proper "bucket" and stand.  In the end we resorted to the method pictured here: sticking the pot on the grill.  Perhaps unorthodox by Slovak standards, but it worked.

Here's the general recipe we used.  I couldn't estimate amounts for the peppers and tomatoes; I just put as many as felt right. 

equal amounts (2 pounds each) beef and pork, cubed 
2 large onions, diced
about 1 pound potatoes (enough to fill up a large mixing bowl)  
bell peppers, chopped
tomatoes, chopped
paprika
salt and pepper to taste
beer (optional) (we used some my brother brewed)
1 packet guláš mix (25 g: salt, paprika, cornstarch, cumin, black pepper, garlic, onion, coriander, marjoram, chili pepper, green pepper)
 

In a large, heavy pot, cook the onions in vegetable oil or lard until translucent. Add the meat, cover, and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until 70% done.

While the meat is cooking, cut the potatoes. Most of the pieces should be stew chunk-size, but some of them should be smaller, finer pieces, to thicken the guláš. Place the potato pieces in a bowl and cover them with water. When the meat has cooked enough, pour the potatoes and water into the onion-meat mix. Add paprika and stir until everything is well mixed.

Cook covered at a low simmer for about another 20 to 30 minutes, until the potatoes begin to soften. Add the peppers and tomatoes and more water or beer if the guláš looks too thick. Add more paprika or salt and pepper. Simmer for another 15 or so minutes, until all the vegetables are cooked. Enjoy with bread and a cold beer. Dobrú chuť!

Stand Ye Ready?

This weekend we went up to the area that my dad likes to call Grande Medveď to go to a Renaissance fair with JOUSTING. I've actually only been to a few Renaissance fairs--fewer than you might expect, really--but none of them had jousting. We wouldn't have gone without it.

The fair took place in what used to be a sawmill, an interesting juxtaposition of old and older. I assume the mill is 20th century, but knowing very little about these things, I can't say for sure.

I think my biggest problem with Renaissance fairs, other than the one I'll address in the next paragraph, is that for some reason most of the participants and coordinators feel that the experience must be ribald. It seems like most fairs deal in extremes: women will either be dressed as high-class ladies who are completely covered up, or lower-class ones with their breasts literally falling out of their bodices. I'm not trying to ignore that every period of history had its salacious bits, but those are not the most entertaining or interesting parts to me, and people who don't enjoy those things are mocked. And that's both off-putting and leaving out a lot of history, where, although the Renaissance definitely saw a weakening of the power of the Church, lots of people were still religious and didn't go out of their way to act "mischievous" or whatever cutesy euphemism people want to use for whorishinappropriate.

The silly thing about Renaissance fairs is that some people use them as an excuse to dress up however they want. Sure enough, there was a kid dressed as Link from The Legend of Zelda, and his friends were also in cosplay-looking outfits. Another girl was wearing fairly normal clothes but a headband with little antlers attached to it. People! When it says visitors are invited to dress in Elizabethan attire, they don't mean game characters or antlers! We didn't see a fairy until we were leaving, though, so I guess that's something.

That being said, most of the vendors and the court were really, really well-dressed. We sat behind Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and her ladies during the joust, so we got to see their costumes close up, and they were quite impressive.
The jousting was done by a group called Knights of Mayhem, who are helping resurrect the sport after centuries. I'm not gonna lie, much of my perception of jousting is based on A Knight's Tale, so while we were watching, lines from the movie kept going through my head (as they do in daily life anyway), and I daresay my mom's as well. Before they actually jousted, the two knights played a few games, like picking up a ring on the butt end of a spear and then throwing the spear at a target on the ground, and then taking swings at a head of lettuce perched on a poor volunteer girl's head. As you can see, she was wearing a helmet and a modern foam helmet underneath (and pretty good garb too, well done young lady), but it couldn't have been relaxing to hear the big horses riding toward you and not know exactly what was going on.


Sir Charles was using a second-string horse, Nightmare (above), who decided after two passes that she didn't want to do this anymore. She stopped short, which for some reason caused him to slide off the side. Twice. The first time was scarier, because we weren't sure what had happened and I for one thought he'd had a heart attack or similar. After the second time, it took rather a while to get back on. Here's when he finally managed it. I like it when the idiot woman behind me says, "Hurry up." Yeah, lady, you hurry up climbing on a horse in 140-pound armor.


I'll definitely be looking for National Geographic's special on the Knights of Mayhem. I suggest you do as well.