It's a Wrap

There are just some things you take for granted. Like wraps. Anywhere you go around here you can get a wrap instead of a carbohydrate-laden big bread sandwich. You can even get them at Subway. Here. Around Dallas.

Memphis is a different story. Very hard to find. I know because I walked for blocks looking for one. The inspection conference sponsor provided sandwiches for lunch, which might not have been too bad except they were all on buns. Big white bread buns. Because of his diabetes, Mark has a problem with those buns. (At home we use the smaller multi-grain sandwich rounds instead of huge sandwich buns.) You never see those smaller sandwich rounds in delis or restaurants so I set off to find him a wrap. 

First stop was the deli inside the Peabody Hotel. No wraps. Just big bread sandwiches. There was a Holiday Inn across the street and we'd shared a wrap there the night we arrived. I went there. They were not open for lunch. I couldn't get one of their wraps until after 5:30 but the gentleman told me that Huey's on the opposite corner "probably" had them. I left the Holiday Inn and headed for Huey's. They had one wrap on their menu and quite frankly, it didn't appeal to me and since I was supposed to share it with Mark I crossed to the opposite corner because I know they have wraps in Subway. Imagine my surprise. No wraps in Subway!

I headed on down the street and asked the guy selling the charity newspaper if he knew where I could get a wrap. He thought they might have them at a place called Under Wraps. (It did sound promising!) He gave me some vague directions and I set off in the direction he pointed. I checked the menu posted at every place between that corner and the Mississippi River. No wraps. 

I popped into a deli that looked promising but there were no wraps on the menu board and I only saw breads behind the counter where they were making the sandwiches. As I left the deli I noticed two cops walking toward me and thought to myself that "they will know everything in the city". 

"Do you know where I can get a wrap?"

"Oh yeah! About four blocks down that way at Aleppo's. It's a pizza place but they make the best wraps of anybody in town. Delicious!" 

I headed for Aleppo's. On my way I passed a place called City Market. It was a store with a deli. Their sign indicated that they had wraps but by this time I wanted the best wraps in town. The delicious ones they served at Aleppo's. I continued another two blocks past City Market to Aleppo's. I looked at the menu and didn't see any wraps but I was confident that they had them because I already knew they were the best in town. 

I waited my turn at the counter. "I heard you had the best wraps in town!"

The two young ladies looked at each other and then back at me. "We don't have any wraps. We have a chicken sandwich that's really good."

How could those cops not known the difference between a wrap and a sandwich? A bit put out because the best wrap in town was a figment of someone's imagination, I headed back to City Market. 

I waited my turn and placed my order. Twenty minutes later, I left with a spicy Cajun chicken wrap. 

I was sure Mark was probably wondering what had become of me (and his lunch) because the entire excursion took a bit over an hour. But we had our wrap. And it was probably the best one in town.

The Long and Short of It

Everything is relative. Many people consider a nine or ten hour flight to be long haul. That's because they've never been on an 18 to 24 hour flight. And these days you're worn out just getting through security. While I always look forward to the trip, I can't say I look forward to the flight. Even on those rare occasions when I've flown business class it's not that much more comfortable. You have more leg room, but my legs aren't so long that it benefits me much. First class is more comfortable because you can put your feet up. I just can't bring myself to pay that much for the privilege. However, it is important to try to move around enough to avoid blood clots and in my case, to prevent my feet from swelling up so much I can't get my shoes back on.

I can manage the swelling if I wear these ridiculously horrible (and expensive) compression stockings. Without rehearsing a litany of why these are horrible, starting with ugly, let's just say I don't want to wear them. The other way to control the swelling is walking. But what I've found is that when you're on a plane, you can walk up and down the aisle only so many times. Some people go to sleep with their legs in the aisle. This is harder to spot when the lights are "out" for the night, not to mention the aisles are barely wide enough for those food and beverage carts. (The flight attendants are always banging them into seats.) Power walking is out of the question.

 It's a challenge. But we tried something new this trip. We split the trip up. We drove to Austin and spent the night. Left the car at the hotel and took their shuttle to the airport the following morning. Then we flew to New York. We had to change planes but we had a couple of hours to change terminals and get something to eat. This involved walking! Then we flew on to Dublin where we had about five hours before the flight to Manchester. We checked our bags and went to the museum at the General Post Office. (Museums are great on rainy days!) Again, more walking. Coming home was much the same, we flew from Dublin to Washington D.C. We didn't really have time to eat dinner before the flight back to Austin but we did have some walking to do to get to the right terminal. It was a bit different because we cleared US customs in Dublin - which is kind of like going through security twice, but it did mean that our bags could be checked all the way to Austin. As I understand it, Dublin is the only European airport that does this, so it may not be so convenient if we're flying in from London or Rome. This arrangement did make for longer travel time. (Except that if we'd traveled into London, we'd have spent the entire day driving to Manchester and still wouldn't have arrived as early as we did by spending several hours in Dublin and flying to Manchester.) It didn't seem to make a great deal of difference on the way home. We left Dublin around noon and got into Austin around 8:30 pm. But again, we cleared customs before we ever boarded the plane and did not have to go through that process again in DC. So the time we'd have spent claiming baggage and clearing customs was spent flying instead.

In the past we always opted for the direct flight. After all, every time you change planes, you give the airline another opportunity to lose your luggage. Flying direct is faster overall, but I think good health may be more important than speed. I'm going to compare this method of splitting up the travel to taking the scenic route. The good news is that neither of us felt completely exhausted during this trip even though it took a bit longer and my feet did not swell.

We'll have to try it again to be sure. I'm not certain it saves any money. I think it can save on the number of air miles we need for a free ticket. We just need to be selective about the stopover airports. We tried it several years ago through Chicago and will never do that again. The flight from Chicago was not appreciably shorter than the flight from Dallas. Same thing for Houston - saves you no time but costs you a hotel room and dinner. (The flights to New York, and Washington DC pretty much divide the trip in half.) Normally I don't like to have a stopover in New York or anywhere in the northeast in February. Too many things can go wrong with the weather. On the other hand, they are accustomed to dealing with it and if it's bad enough to shut down the airport, then we'll have an adventure. We are no longer in a hurry to get anywhere.

The Best (and Worst) Things About Ireland

The best things first.

1. The people. The friendliest and nicest people. Someone offered us a parking voucher. Someone offered to share a table with us in a fish and chip shop. People on the street say hello - and yes, they're talking to you! Hotel and restaurant staff were all especially friendly. (Except for one. There's always one.)
2. The hotel rooms. All of the rooms we stayed in were spacious except for one. (There's always one.) Several of them included a sitting area with a sofa.
3. The views. Dramatic coastline, green hillsides dotted with sheep, and of course, castles.
4. Seafood. Fresh. Fish, shrimp, crab. You name it. Fish cakes. Fish chowder. Fish and chips. Baked fish. And did I mention it's all fresh?
5. They do cocktails. Mark ordered a dry martini and got a dry martini instead of a glass of vermouth - which is what you are likely to get if you order a dry martini in England.

And now for the worst.

1. The weather. The weather wasn't what I'd consider perfect. We had a couple of really brilliant sunny days. Most days were cloudy, but without rain. And we had a couple days that can only be described as foul. I'm sure the cold was due to the time of year we chose to go, but I'm not sure about the clouds and rain. I suspect those may be fairly consistent. I visited Dublin some time ago at a different time of year and I remember experiencing clouds and rain.
2. Cold hotel rooms. This is indirectly related to the weather. If it had been hot outside, the hotel rooms probably would have been hot. In fact the young lady who showed us to our room in Kildare wanted to make sure we knew how to operate the air conditioning. (It was not needed!) But several of the hotel rooms had the radiators on timers which were controlled somewhere near the front desk and not in the room. When you called to report that you were unable to turn up the heat, they offered to boost it for you. Whatever that means. In one hotel they brought us an additional heater. In another they switched us to a different room. In the last hotel we just sucked it up and lived with it. (It was always warm enough at night.)

And then there is the interesting. What I found particularly interesting is the lack of diversity. In the US you are very likely to encounter all sorts of names. Not just in folks you know and work with but in the businesses and professionals you deal with. For example, my doctors names are Jarrah, Monier, Evans, Terrill, Trautmann, and Gold. Department stores are Dillards, Penneys, and Macys. You're not going to find that diversity in Ireland. The doctors and dentists are named O'Leary, Murphy, O'Connor and Flanagan. Department stores are much the same. Nothing wrong with it. It accurately reflects the population. But in England all the staff in an Indian restaurant are of Indian, Bangladeshi, or Pakistani descent. In Ireland, only the folks doing the cooking are Indian. The rest of them are O'Connells.

A Day (or Two) in Bray

Bray, which could be classified as a suburb of Dublin was the last stop on our whirlwind tour of southern Ireland. We had overnight stops in Kildare, Tralee, Cahersiveen, Cork, Waterford, Wicklow and Bray.

We had a sea-view room in Bray.

There was one day where the weather can only be described as foul. But on the sunny day, the promenade was teeming with people (and dogs) parading back and forth. But on the sunny day and the cloudy day, the views were fantastic!

A Little Blarney

Years ago my dear friend Jane was telling me about her visit to Blarney Castle and kissing the Blarney Stone. She described a narrow, winding stone staircase and people holding her feet while she kissed the stone. She didn't have any pictures to show me and the images her descriptions conjured up in my head were odd, if not outright frightening, and 100% inaccurate. (Think of bats in caves.)

Having been there now, I can see what she was talking about. Except that people no longer have to hold your feet. Now there are iron bars you can hold on to in order to keep from toppling out of the castle onto the ground - a generous three story drop. So having someone hold onto your feet for that little extra security is not a bad idea either.

See that opening at the very top? It's in there.

This is the stone.

They were doing major renovations on the castle while we were there, so I had to choose my camera angles carefully in order to avoid scaffolding and plastic, which add nothing to the charm of a castle.

The grounds were lovely, but it wasn't the right time of year for the gardens.

They say that kissing the Blarney Stone will give you eloquent speech. Hmmm. I know some people who should go...

Dingle Made Me Tingle

The Dingle Peninsula and the Iveragh Peninsula have some of the most stunning coastline I've ever seen. Even though the weather was overcast while we were there, it is still very dramatic.

Plus it's very hilly and there are waterfalls coming off the hills.

And there's just something about the name "Dingle"....

Hey, Hey LBJ

How many kids did you kill today? I remember that chant. Back in the 60s I'd have been among the chanters. I truly didn't think he cared about the Americans who were dying in southeast Asia. But after visiting the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin I came to realize that this man cared. More deeply than most of us knew. That war devastated that president. He understood that he couldn't win it and he didn't want it to be the undoing of everything else that he'd worked for.

And what else had he worked for? The Great Society - Civil Rights, Medicare, Head Start. Clean air and water. Things we take for granted today. While most of our government leaders today come from a legal background, Johnson's background was in education. It's my belief that this shaped the types of programs and legislation that he pursued. No telling what he might have accomplished if that war hadn't got in the way.

Anyway, as I learned in this visit, presidential libraries are not just about the papers and books of a particular president. They are designed to help you understand the context of the presidency. What was going on culturally, socially, and historically as well as politically. Having lived through the Johnson presidency, the exhibits in the Johnson library brought back lots of memories.

I'd assumed that presidential libraries are dull, boring places. Not so. (Same goes for the Library of Congress in Washington DC. - fabulous place to visit.) The Bush library is just down the road. I think we'll be paying a visit sometime soon.