The Beatle’s Story

On our trip to Manchester, Wales, and Liverpool there was one thing I could not pass up, that was doing something Beatles related. Even thought they were together really for a short period of time they created a lot of music that is some of the most recognized in the world. I bet it would be hard to go a week with out hearing a Beatles track. That said, I am not the most dedicated fan. I own a couple of CDs but not all of them. I didn’t know a ton of Beatles trivia and I am no great student of music either. But when you are in the hometown of a group of individuals with such fame I figure you should embrace that culture and see what it has to offer. If I was in Memphis I would stop at Graceland, so when I was in Liverpool I went to The Beatles Story.

There were a ton of options. We could have taken self tours through John and Paul’s boyhood homes. We could have taken the walking tour, the magical bus tour, or several other “Beatles” tours. But I decided we should go to the museum that was run by the Beatles own company Apple. Not the computer company, the music label that is at least 15 years older and has won a number of lawsuits against Mr. Jobs. The Beatles Tour is fantastic. I was a little leery paying what I thought was a larger than required fee but it was completely worth it. Though I am still not sure if the wife agrees with me, but being a good sport she went along for the ride as usual.

The museum is located along the docs that once made the town such an industrial place to live. It is in the basement of a newly restored freight house that also houses posh and flashy shops along with a hotel, art gallery, and some fine eating establishments. The building is probably well over a hundred if not two hundred years old and made out of very appealing yellow brick. The old hand pulley-swivel cranes originally used to move freight from the ground to windows and doors in the upper levels of the building dot the side of that building and are painted a striking red. The basement is a series of building supports that hold up arches that in general reach 10 feet before the next one starts. As is common in Europe you are give an audio guide that you operate by entering a number that corresponds to the exhibit you are looking at.

There were a mix of glass displays, wax figures, recreations of entire clubs, streets, and even areas of foreign cities. The museum was set up as if you were in a documentary. Literally starting out with material on the school children that would grow to be the famous musicians, and then walking through their careers. Many of the places that have been recreated no longer exist or have changed dramatically in the last 30-40 years. There were at least a dozen and a half rooms each containing a different chapter of the bands history. Each different chapter was a mix of artifacts, recreations, narrations, and recording of interviews of the Beatles and those people involved with them. It was a lot of fun. And I learned more about the Beatles than I think I would have watching a documentary or reading books. We spent easily two and a half hours on this adventure and I was not disappointed at all. At the end of the museum there were also little pods dedicated to each Beatle that told their personal pos band story, and the last room was a dedication to John Lennon done all in white, with a side room containing photos of John and Yoko. However one of the things I thought really made the tour was learning the little facts. For instance the band would sit at a certain table every night before playing, because it was by the girl’s bathroom. When the door swung open and closed they could see the girls in various stages of dress as the girls would change from their school clothes to there going out clothes there!

After the tour we got a bus tour of the city which led us to continue our trip into Beatles lore as we did get off the at the Mathew’s Street stop. This is the street where it all really got cooking. This is where the band originally played and got the first fan base. There were statues of each band member as long as a couple of other musicians from the era. Again it has become a place for the night crowd but I am sure it is a lot more polished than it was in the 50s and 60s.

Mountains and Flooded Caves

Danger is my middle name. Well not really it is nothing like it actually. But it is a fun thing to say. But while my middle name isn’t anything out of the ordinary I do like to go on the occasional adventure. In fact I am a bit of an explorer of sorts, I always want to see what is around the next corner, down the next block, in the cave, behind a door, etc. It really doesn’t even matter what I find, as long as I get to find it. My lovely wife is also an adventurer and explorer. She just gets a bored and tired before I usually do, but even then she tends to be a good sport about things. Recently this even meant hair raising racing through treacherous mountain roads and fording a cold, wet, underground river recently. And for a change I am not even exaggerating about that.

It happened in Wales. One of our recent road trips was to Manchester, Liverpool, through Snowdonia to Swansea, and then back to home sweet home away from home Portsmouth. But I am starting at the end so should work the right way through. We started our day in a nice Country Club Hotel outside of Manchester run by Marriott (gotta love the points). We drove through northern Wales stopping at a site or two and seeing some incredibly beautiful scenery. Halfway through the day we stopped in a little town and walked across a cool old suspension bridge, visited a modern armory, and walked along an old town wall. After this we stopped at a mansion that was built around in the early to mid 1800’s that was made to look like a Norse castle. It was pretty cool and as usual I got yelled at for trying to sneak some photos from inside. Then it was time to head through the Mountains towards the south and our next hotel.

The Mountains in Snowdonia aren’t that tall. The highest peek in the region is Snowdon at 3600 ft. But the mountains are certainly different looking. They are mostly covered in yellow green grass, except where they open to show great displays of grey brown rock. We could not see the tops of the mountains do to the weather and mist that surrounded everything. The trees are not all pines as you see in the Alps or Rockies, but also include maples, oaks, and birches. We passed many a lake and stream and much of the road we traveled was a lot like a tunnel. Where trees on both sides of the road had grown together to block out a lot of the sun. Most of the roads were barely big enough for a single car, yet we had bidirectional traffic. I have dealt with this before but in flat or only semi hilly farm fields. This added another dimension of fun as many of the roads had a very noticeable decline or incline. In fact at some points it felt like we were driving into the mist, through a tunnel of trees, with trucks coming at us, strait up a mountain. Yes, driving in the US is going to super easy when I get home, the British are nutz. Or in this case Welsh I guess.

The hairy drive through the mountains was actually the least of our adventure though. After a night in a hotel in Swansea we decided to go to coast for a little hike. We got to the coast, but the 50 mile an hour winds and rain made us change our plans to have lunch and look out the windows at the coast instead. So then we went to a place that I thought would be more indoors the National Cave Center. This place has 3 caves, a petting zoo, some ancient stone circles, a replica of an Iron Age farm, and a bunch of plaster dinosaurs. This place would make any 1950s US road side attraction, AKA Tourist Trap, owner proud. It was actually pretty fun, we walked through several caves, looked at the farm and dinosaurs, and checked of 2/3s of the attractions. The funniest thing about the cave is in true British fashion they had loud speakers playing a track making you feel like you were there when the caves were first explored along with a few fake people hanging around in scenes to show the way it was. Pretty cheesey stuff. Not really the stuff most adventures are made from.

That is until we went into the last cave, a very large and long cave that contains a waterfall. It is called the wedding cave, as the rent it out for weddings. When we first walked into the cave there was ½ of inch of water across the foot path. The water was coming from a small stream to the left of the path and was draining on the other side of the path. In fact it looks like the path was built over the stream and its level had just rose a bit. Undeterred we continued along. We noticed that the waterfall that supplied the river was quite larger than we thought and we had to use our umbrellas to continue along the path that when by it. After several minutes we made it to the back of the cave, which was full of the strange combined melody of a wedding march and rushing waterfall. I could see how it might be cool to have a ceremony there, but it would be impossible to stay clean and dry. We looked around for a bit then headed out. When we reached the exit of the cave, that same river had actually come up a foot or more and created a lake. We couldn’t even figure out where the path had been.

After a couple of minutes of thing we may be able to go along the wall or find the edge of the path we gave up. Figuring it was only going to get worse before it got better we forded the weather. This soaked up in COLD mountain water up to our knees. It was not pleasant. And being that we were 4-5 hours from home it was not the happy situation. It was kind of funny though poking my umbrella in the water to find my way through the mini lake in the cave. When we did get out we saw drain next to the cave. It was flowing so little when we went in we didn’t notice it. Now it was a raging torrent. All was not lost however. Luckily we both had extra shoes and clothes in the car. So we were able to get somewhat dry before completing our long drive back to the apartment.

Bus Tours

I must admit that very often I am prejudice against things. I make up my mind on something and being slightly stubborn I simple don’t change it with out being pushed a bit. A lot of this is based on the fact that I don’t like to pay for things. I really don’t like to spend money if I don’t have to. So I am always looking for deals and seeing if I can substitute a little elbow grease to save a buck. Of course I still do this a little but as I actually make a little money now I have been hard pressed to change my ways and take things easy. I still avoid guided tours for the most part and most add on. So for example when we went to London for New Years we got Subway passes and tried to pre-book attractions when ever possible and ran our own routine.

However talking to a lot of my friends that have traveled to London and they have had a lot of success buying city bus tours that allow you to get on and off at different places and take you all over town. So on a trip to Wales I let a friend talk me into a 5 pound bus tour of Cardiff. It turned out to be a really nice way to get a feel for the whole city and not just a few sites. Riding on the top of a double-decker bus is fun to boot. So that was the being of my new embracing of some organized tours. Also in May for our anniversary we took and organized tour that included dinner, a cruise, and a show. It was a little pricey but the things we did I never would have picked and enjoyed it a lot so once or twice a year I think we could do these kind of tours while traveling. Though I am still not sold on complete tour packages to tour a country, but I did see a cool High-Lands tour in Edinburgh I would have liked to do.

So now if we have limited time to see an area I look for a city-tour bus. As long as it doesn’t cost too much that is. The one in London is actually 15 pounds so that may be a little much as we could get around town for 3 days on that money, but in Cardiff, Liverpool, and Manchester they run 6.50 or less. The other nice thing about these tours is that they take you to places you may not normally think to go. So you get a more complete picture of an area, and they are normally good for 24 hours so if you wanted you could use the tickets to see a lot of sites with out worrying about how to get there, parking the car, etc. So now I too have to say, at least in the UK, if you have a day to kill I would recommend grabbing the city-tour bus in whatever city you are in.

I know why that lady attacked the phone company with a hammer

Last October I read a hilarious account of a frustrated Comcast customer that go revenge using a hammer. The best part of it was that she was 75 and did what the office space guys did to a printer to a phone company computer. It was great. But I never understood what would make you want to go that far. I have a temper, I will admit this. In fact my wife has no problem telling me that when I get frustrated I start to act like a four year old kid. That is true. But normally it passes quickly. But a few months ago I did have a passing idea to repeat the performance written in the article about the Comcast customer.

My gripe though was/is with Avis. Apparently Avis is not a truly global company. You can call Avis or use their dot com website to book a car in the UK. However all that does is transfer it to Avis in the UK who enter this into a completely different system. They also do their own billing, have separate customer support, and as far as I can tell from the outside are a completely different company. Though I do get free rentals in the US for my long contracts over in the UK – which would be nice if I was there to use them!

So I have what is called a mini-lease. I keep the car and I am billed monthly. However when the car needs servicing I take it in and they swap it out. When I did this a few months ago they billed me for the car monthly and for a few weeks separately though I only had one car. In addition to this they did not send me any invoices, which of course I need to do expenses. First I tried calling customer service when I was in the states and they told me I had to call the UK customer service. So I tried calling them, after being on hold for over 3 hours two separate times I gave up. Then I tried calling where I had picked up the car and they referred me back to the customer service line, if you can call it that. So I finally settled to send an email.

In the nicest manner I explained the whole screw up and asked that they rectify it. There own site said it the mail would be answered in 15 days. So I waited 3 business weeks. No answer. Finally a week and a ½ late they sent an apology and credited my account. They also sent me the invoices I needed. However they didn’t credit the proper amount so I was a little beside myself. Now I am deciding how much it is worth to follow this up, whether I should be happy with what I got, or maybe – just maybe – I too should head into the office with a hammer.

I will probably let it drop as the remainder isn’t that much. But I doubt if I come back and need a car that I will use Avis in the UK again. I also certainly understand why the old lady went to hammer diplomacy too.

Russian Literature

So while in St. Petersburg I got a little bored in the evenings when RG would talk to her aunt in Russian. So during the second ½ of the week there we passed by a book store that had some English titles. So I looked through the books and nothing contemporary caught my eye so I looked at some of the older titles in reprint. The one that caught my eye was The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky the writer of Crime and Punishment and a dozen other titles. It is a relatively heavy book and it is dived strangly into different parts, which seem to work as the scene does in a play. Each part has its own plot with a all the expect elements of a full story and ends with a kind of cliff hanger. Then the whole of the book (I am only 2/3 of the way through) has an over all plot and story line. It is a quite interesting way of writing and it certainly different than most modern novels.

The first thing I must say about Russian authors, and from other people I have confirmed this, they write in what I can only say is excruciating detail. If they describe a room they do it down to the dust bunnies on the floor and the nails sticking out of the woodwork. There are times I skim a whole page to get back to the story. Though when you are in the mood to really get into the setting there is certainly an abundance of information for your imagination to work with. Along with the detail the story doesn’t really exclude any activity besides body functions. There are entire sub plots that happen and do not carry the story forward at all; they don’t even seem to add to character development in my mind. The characters just take a right turn for no reason, have a sub adventure, then return to the main plot of the part and book. Again this can be amusing at times and certainly is allows you get yourself more engrossed in the setting but if you are hungry for the next part of the plot to develop it can be a bit frustrating.

Then there are characters, and that are all just that characters, and there are a lot of them. Each person in the story gets a lot of development and is very interesting in their own right. Many character introductions literally take pages and they do the strangest things on a regular basis. I know that Russian upper society in the mid 1800s is quite a bit different than the world I live in but some of the interactions, even form those I have witnessed in modern Russians, are just plain strange - though this in itself is very entertaining. The volume of characters is quite large and since they have very long names it does become hard from time to time to distinguish them. Which I find interesting because the names are so different from each other, I just can’t remember who is who though because the names are so long and unfamiliar.

Finally the dialogue is a riot to read. I have not been so entertained in a long time. It has its own strange tempo that keeps things moving and a back and forth between the characters that actually reminds me of a sitcom or movie from the 20s/30s. And the characters are always playing games and speaking in riddles so it is quite fun. This helps create a much greater emotional range in responses that the characters have. In fact I think there is more emotion in the first 100 pages than in the last two or three modern fiction books I have read. So while this is certainly not a review of the book I will say that for entertainment value alone the book is worth the read – though I would also say that it is worth the read to experience the different writing style, get engrossed in Russian society of a bygone era, or just because it is an interesting story (look it up on Wikipedia I’m not going to spoil the plot).

Moving

Well life has been interesting and I believe it will continue to become so probably for the next six months. So the ole ball and chain is working to make the chain a few thousand miles shorter for a time. She is going to be moving into to the apartment with me in England for the duration of my current project. Though please don’t tell anyone because then I would have to pay some pretty high taxes for her staying in the city. The UK is nutz about there taxes. I pay 130+ GDP a month in what they call council taxes. That is more than $260! RG was approved with a work permit through March of next year so she can come and go from the UK as she pleases. She was also approved for her I-130. This is the first step towards getting her back in the country. So the best case scenario is that she would be getting her immigration Visa before I move back to the states.

I am not too optimistic about the best case scenario though. After searching the internet high and low the only mention of a time frame was on the US Consultant’s website for Frankfurt Germany which stated that you should allow 5 months. That would be the second week of January. So we shall see. It has already been three weeks and we have not received any of the paperwork yet. So who knows what is going on inside the State Department. I do know that it was received at the State Department on August 14, 3 days after approval at the CIS. But the automated message just says to allow 6-8 weeks for the next step! Jeeze what is this a mail order, send it 10 cereal box tops, decoder ring or Bart Simpson Spy camera, no it is my wife. What a pain.

However if things go smoothly with a little help from online payments and Fed-Ex priority air we may get things moved on a little faster. Who knows.

Should we not get things moved faster then we will have new issues to deal with: RG having left her job and apartment in Russia and me going back to the states for my next work assignment. In that case we have only a few options. RG goes and lives with her parents in Taganrog (I think she would go crazy with in 3 weeks), possibly she could stay in England (though I know not were or how), I could get a new job in the UK (again not very likely as I would need to switch firms as my career would be stalled for not working in the states), or she may go live with her sister in Germany. I think the last option is the most likely. It should only be for a few weeks so hopefully the sister in law’s fiancée won’t mind so much. At any rate things are moving, hopefully a long and at a good clip and we will be having an even more interesting end to an interesting year.