Food, TV, Waterfalls
According to Peter Trigg’s Calendar – “My kind of Somerset”… It’s the first of September, meaning we can look at a grainy picture of All Saints’ Church, Aisholt for 30 odd days. Stateside, we’re at the end of a bank holiday weekend (Labor (sic) Day). And summer is officially over.
On Friday we went out to a Greek restaurant down the road, Eleni’s I believe it’s called, which is muy fancy, pricey and delicious and then after that to our nearest pub, the Black Cat or somesuch… Saturday was a race against time to get both cars emissions tested which took far longer than it should have. They both passed the test, but due to inadequate directions we probably contributed more greenhouse gasses into the environment while we driving two cars around lost for an hour than would be ideal. The next step is going to the DMV to get Oregon plates for the cars. You have 60 days after moving to do this, but Drsita needs them to get a parking permit up at the uni and you feel very self-conscious driving around with California plates as they’ve a reputation for uncourteous, reckless driving. And rightly so, I’ve not heard a single car horn beeped in anger since getting here. And, of course, everyone cycles or uses public transport.
On Saturday evening we went with a couple of friends to El Toro Bravo, a tapas bar would you believe. Again, excellent food. And after that we started on The Wire season 4…
Yesterday we set out early for a new set of waterfalls… Photos abound over here. Incidentally, I’ve started flagging any photos with people in on Flickr as “only available to Friends & Family” since I’m a bit wary after Sita’s picture got used in an academic paper and I only found out about it when it turned up on BoingBoing… If you’d like to be added as a Flickr friend let me know, it’s one level above ‘contact’ and you’ll get to see people as well as waterfalls and skies.
After the waterfalls we went to a farmers’ market and there I took my favourite picture of the day:
What are the pubs like in America? I have visions of modern bars or saloons with those swing door things…
They vary from state to state, town to town. It’s a fairly big country… Here’s a typical Oregon bar:
Imagine Henry’s. Remove everyone aged between 15 and 21. Take the vast majority of the indie tunes off the jukebox. Allow smoking again (till January 1st 2009). Replace the fruit machines with video poker. Plaster beer advertising EVERYWHERE. Swap them imperial pints for smaller ones and charge slightly less. Then counter that with about 1 dollar extra tip for every drink you order. Remove the vague threat of physical violence hanging over the town and extend the opening time to 1am ish. Replace crisps with funyuns. Reduce the selection of ciders to 1, if you’re lucky, and make that a very sweet one… Get rid of the optics and pour generous, cheap spirits. Add another 8 brands of tequila to the Cuervo Gold…
That’s a start, I may well revisit this topic 🙂
Nice gravatar btw! -hasta pronto