GRUB!: New York City Style

It’s the height of summer in London and the weather is fine and I’m between jobs so I’ve got some time to put my feet up, sip a glass of Pimm’s, and get a bit of back-blogging done. (That’s blogging about something that happened months ago because you don’t have the energy or motivation to go seek out something new.)  Some of you may recall that I spent a few days in New York City right after I got back from Russia.  (I’m really getting around these days, aren’t I?  Vacation in New York City, wedding in Italy, oh, and did I mention I just spent a week in Amsterdam?  Yeah, life is good.)  But back to New York... it was a great vacation, made even better because it was my first ever trip to New York, and I got to share it with my good friends Karen and Steve, who astute Go Stay Work Play Live readers will remember from multiple posts, most recently about Afternoon Tea.

See?  We were really there!  That huge brick building in the background is the massive London Terrace apartment block which covers an entire city block in Chelsea and contains more than 1,700 individual apartments.

So yeah… New York City.  It’s actually a bit weird that I hadn’t visited before.  I flatter myself that I’m pretty well travelled by this point so to have missed one of the greatest cities on earth seems a bit of an oversight.  No matter, I’ve been there now and it was definitely worth the wait.  And it was great to be there with Karen and Steve, who’ve been before and so had a bit of local knowledge.  They also had a lot more time to prepare than I did, considering I was coming straight off a big gig in a weird place.  I managed to acquire a guidebook for New York and dig out the appropriate plug adapters from my now-impressive arsenal, but that’s about as much prep as I had.

No, wait, I did have one very important document, provided to me by a friend and colleague from Sochi gig, Anne.  She lives in New York and sent me her personal guide to New York City, which turned out to be a highly useful document full of expert tips, mostly to do with what to eat and how to find it.  Thus armed with Anne’s insider info and Karen and Steve’s exhaustive research, we proceeded to eat our way across the island of Manhattan.  Here’s a little sample of the highlights:

1. Doughnut Plant

Thank you to Anne for this one.  Her guide included a walk through the Flat Iron / Chelsea area, which included a recommendation to visit Doughnut Plant on 23rd Street, between 7th and 8th Avenue at the famous Chelsea Hotel.  One of the original gourmet doughnut shops, Doughnut Plant is justifiably famous for its sophisticated flavour combinations, innovative square jelly-filled doughnuts, and use of fresh seasonal fruit and freshly roasted nuts in their glazes and toppings.

They also have fun decor, including this glazed doughnut bench.

And the trippiest bathroom I've seen in a while...

We sampled a few varieties: a cream-filled, glazed tres leches cake donut, a stunning peanut butter and jelly and their signature crème brûlée doughnut with a perfect hard sugar topping and custard filling.  Along with a good cup of coffee, it was special enough that I went back again a few days later with Anne.  Don't judge me.  You would have done the same thing given the chance.

Crème brûlée doughnut!

2. Soul Food

One of the things on Steve's To Do list for this trip was a walking tour of Harlem, followed by a soul food supper.  The Harlem tour was interesting, sure, but I think we all agreed the highlight was supper at Sylvia's Restaurant.  Sylvia's is a Harlem institution, first opened in 1962, so while there were other options close by, we figured we might as well go straight to the source.  It wasn't what I was expecting - I figured on a more diner/ greasy spoon vibe, but Sylvia's is a proper sit-down restaurant with super-friendly attentive table service.

Karen was keen to try the chicken and waffles combo, which has always struck me as an unlikely combination.  I'm curious as to how it arose, and wonder why no one has ever suggested, say, Roast Beef & Pancakes or perhaps Fish 'n' French Toast.

I figured I didn't need to bother with the waffles since we'd already sampled this delightful offering from the good people at Lay's.  They were weirdly tasty.

Steve and I opted for the traditional Southern fried chicken which came with a dizzying choice of side dishes including buttered corn, okra and tomato gumbo, black-eyed peas, candied yams and pickled beets.  We both opted for collard greens and mac & cheese, and we were not disappointed.  The fried chicken also comes with a "smothered" option, meaning the whole lot is covered in gravy.  I was uncertain.  Gravy is, of course, an inherently Good Thing, but the term "smothered" was potentially alarming, leading to visions of lovely crispy fried chicken losing all it's crunchy yumminess under a coating of stodge.  I needn't have feared because our helpful server simply suggested I have the gravy on the side, which was such a clear and brilliant thought that my problem was solved and her tip instantly rocketed into the lavishly generous zone.

Fried chicken, greens and mac & cheese.  And beer, of course.  The portions were generous, but it was America after all.

Fried chicken has never been a favourite food of mine; I'm not overly fond of anything that required you to separate meat from bone at the table, especially if it involves active gnawing. However, I'll happily make an exception the next time I'm in Harlem and visit Sylvia's again, I'll just need to make sure to fast for three days beforehand, or simply run there and back from Vermont.

3. Black and White cookies

Jerry Seinfeld: "Oh look Elaine, the black and white cookie. I love the black and white. Two races of flavor living side by side in harmony. It's a wonderful thing, isn't it?"
Elaine: "You know, I often wonder what you'll be like when you're senile."
Jerry: "I'm looking forward to it."
Elaine: "Yeah, I think it'll be a very smooth transition for you."

- Jerry and Elaine, in "The Dinner Party"

The famous black and white cookie, a nice little pitstop encountered at a random bakery during a random walk, on a day when we must have covered about 15 miles on foot.  (No, really.)  They're plain but classic - a simple, soft sugar cookie covered with half vanilla and half chocolate icing.  Great for sharing, and for a nice photo op:

Clearly Karen loves my blue toque

4. Chopped Liver

I saved this for last because honestly, it was life-changing.  Along with soul food the other thing on the To Do list was a meal at a real New York deli. Most visitors to New York will opt for Katz's, the most famous deli in New York.  Instead, we decided to try to find a more local, neighbourhoody place. Karen exercised her Googling skills and found Second Avenue Deli, just a short walk from our hotel (though, paradoxically, not actually on Second Avenue).

It fit the bill exactly.

You could tell right away this was the kind of place that locals frequent.  Across from us two young guys in yarmulkes were putting away an astonishing volume of food with a sort of grim determination that made their meal seem more like a chore than a pleasure.  And a young family sat not far away introducing their little boy to the joys of matzo ball soup. Karen opted for a bowl of the same, along with a pickle juice martini.  We also got a complimentary dish of dill pickles, half sour pickles and coleslaw, which made for a very promising start.  (Pickles are something of an obsession for Karen, which led us, on an earlier night, to sample the deep-fried pickles at a local brew pub.  Surprisingly not bad.)

Karen, happy with her soup, which was served with lovely slices of challah.

I've always been a fan of chopped liver, so I took the road less travelled and ordered potato latkes and a chopped liver sandwich.  I would not be disappointed.  My latke/chopped liver benchmark was set some decades ago at The Main restaurant in Montreal, where the latkes are generally sublime but the chopped liver has always been a bit dry.  Not so at Second Avenue Deli.  (The Main, incidentally, always plays second fiddle to the much more popular Schwartz's just down the block, much like the Katz's-Second Avenue scenario...)  My sandwich arrived and turned out to be a typically out-sized New York offering.  I'd estimate there was at least 3/4 of a cup of chopped liver on EACH SIDE of that sandwich.  And when I tasted it... Oh. My. God.  I made a sort of "Are you kidding me?" face because it was unbelievably good.  Smooth, creamy, moist and positively singing with the flavour of caramelised onions.  It was transcendent.  I was completely floored.

Soooooo good.  And soooooo much.  If we'd been staying in NY another day I would have taken some of this back to the hotel for later snacking.  As it was, I just ate it all.  It was much much too good to leave behind.  Plus, apparently that's what you do in New York.  You eat until you're begging for mercy, and then you have a hot dog.

As evidence of the heavenly nature of Second Avenue Deli's chopped liver, I offer this anecdote:

Steve is a great guy to travel with because he's got that naturally gregarious sort of nature that means he can strike up a friendly conversation with just about anyone, and frequently does.  So after the determined young men across the aisle finally departed and were replaced by two women - obviously tourists - Steve ended up chatting with them as they contemplated the menu.  Still in the throes of ecstasy over my chopped liver sandwich, and gamely making my way through the second half, I quickly suggested to one woman that she must try it. "Seriously, it is life-changing." I said.  She demurred... She liked chopped liver, but her friend was not a fan, so she was wavering.  Quickly the waiter offered her a small taste on a plate and her face when she sampled it was exactly the same "Are you kidding me?" face I'd made just minutes earlier.  "See what I mean?" I said.  And she ordered the chopped liver.  I rest my case.

So yeah, New York was great.  And I didn't even tell you about Papaya Dogs (No papayas are harmed in the making of Papaya King Hotdogs), or the oyster po' boy at Chelsea Market, or the crazy good concrete from Shake Shack (A concrete is frozen custard mixed with awesomeness, in this case a heady combination of chocolate frozen custard, peanut butter sauce, chocolate covered pretzels and marshmallow sauce.  Better still, Shake Shack now has a branch open at Covent Garden! Yay!).  Of course we also did all the mandatory tourist stuff: we saw a Broadway show, went up the Empire State Building, walked the Brooklyn Bridge and explored newly trendy DUMBO, strolled the Guggenheim, visited Tiffany’s, saw Wall Street, sailed to the Statue of Liberty, and visited Central Park.  Maybe I'll even blog about that some day.  For now, you can check out some photos at the NYC Flickr album, and start to plan the menu for your next visit to New York.  Just remember to save room for the chopped liver.

Mandatory New York-y photo of Pam.

The Italian Wedding

Insert standard blah blah blah about lack of bloggage here...  I've actually been working!  I just opened a challenging show that kept me busy through all of June, hence the radio silence. Though truthfully, I wasn't busy for ALL of June.  I did take a quick break at the beginning of the month.  'Cause you know how sometimes you just need a few days on the Italian Riviera? Of course you do.  After eight months in Russia, I'm very happy to be back in London, that's certain.  However, one of the lovely things about living in London is how easy it is to get OUT of.  A two hour flight from Winnipeg will get you perhaps to Toronto or Calgary or maybe Chicago if you're feeling daring.  A two hour flight from London will get you most of Western Europe.  France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Czech Republic, and, of course, much of Italy.

I was pretty excited when I got my friend Jeremy's save-the-date email while I was still up to my eyeballs in Russia.  The notion of jetting off to attend a weekend wedding in Italy reminded me that there was a better life waiting for me to dive back into it when I got home and was a much needed pick-me-up that helped get me through those last hard months of hard graft in Sochi.  And what better excuse than to witness the happy union of my good friend Jeremy and his lovey Italian fiancé Paola?  (Astute Go Stay Work Play Live readers will remember Jeremy from previous posts about cheese and football.) (Those were two different posts, thankfully.  The mind reels at the notion of combining the two in any kind of cohesive way... "And here comes Wayne Rooney up the middle challenging for the net... But wait, what's this?  He seems to have slipped on a large wheel of Camembert and he's lost control of the ball.  Such a shame since he'd already negotiated the Gouda and the legendarily devilish Port Salut...")

As I'm currently enjoying a freelance (semi-slacker) lifestyle, I booked myself and extra extra extra long weekend, found a reasonable hotel in Santa Margherita Ligure - Paola's home town and the base for the weekend's festivities - and got a cheap flight to Pisa.  After a reasonable train ride from Pisa, I was happily ensconced in the very friendly and eminently pleasant Hotel Minerva, which I highly recommend the next time you've got a wedding to attend in the Porto Fino area.

Portofino, playground of the rich and famous.  Most of the guests stayed in Santa Margherita, where hotels were more reasonably priced, though there was a much lower chance of bumping into George Clooney.

Understanding that people would probably want to see some of the area while there, and keen to make their guests feel welcome, Jeremey and Paola organised a walk on Saturday, for which we were warned to bring sturdy shoes, plenty of water, and swimming clothes.  It all sounded quite promising.  Especially the part where we took the bus to the starting point at the top of the ridge, instead of slogging all the way on foot.

Here's the view from our starting point in the village of Ruta.

The scenery was undoubtedly lovely, and about a dozen of us set off from Ruta around 11am, heading down to the coast at the Abbey of San Fruttuoso, which is only accessible by sea or on foot.  However, on a continuum starting with "pleasant amble" and ending with "Bataan Death March", this walk was rather uncomfortably farther towards the Death March end of the spectrum than I think many of us were expecting.  Especially those who had ignored the advice about wearing sensible shoes.  Luckily the Abbey proved to be a worthy target, if only because there was time for a swim and, more importantly, a choice of cafés serving beer and lunch.  I had the local Ligurian specialty, trofie with pesto.  They're a little twisty shaped pasta not miles from fusili served with basil pesto (which originates in the region) and small bits of cooked potato.

One of many pictures of food from the trip.  View that all at the Flickr set, here.

Oh yeah... and the abbey

After the Abbey we climbed back up over another ridge and descended again into Porto Fino, then on to a swimming spot a bit further on for a quick dip, and then finally dragged ourselves back to Santa Margherita with enough time to shower and rest a bit before seeking out supper.  Unsurprisingly, great food was a bit of a theme for the weekend.  Despite the fact that we wandered around town Saturday night for a disspiriting amount of time before finally finding a restaurant with an open table, the fare when we were finally fed was fantastic.  I developed a real taste for the local anchovies, which are nothing like the super salt tinned variety (though those are good too).  Served fresh and marinated in a squeeze of lemon, oil and vinegar, they were light and lovely.  Equally excellent was the other local pasta speciality, pansotti with walnut sauce.  And the gelato.  Oh, and I was introduced to cantucci vin santo, a dessert sort of thing that involving little crunchy biscotti that you dip into a glass of strong dessert wine.  And... well I could go on and on.  Suffice it to say that basically nothing that passed my lips that weekend was less than memorable.

Despite dire weather forecasts, the wedding day turned out warm and sunny.  The church of St Giorgio is impossibly picturesque, perched on the peninsula at Portofino.  It's tiny, a bit rundown in a wonderfully appealing wabi-sabi kind of way, and utterly perfect.

See what I mean?  And that castle you can just see further up on the left?  That's Castello Brown, site of the reception.

The ceremony itself was simple and bilingual, conducted by a tag-team duo that included the local Italian priest (who looked a bit like a sexy Mr. Bean, especially after the ceremony when he took off his vestments and put on sunglasses) and an imported vicar from London who could have come from Central Casting.  Jeremy even said part of his vows in what sounded like very credible Italian.

Obligatory wedding photo.  See what I mean about Mr. Bean?

The reception was at the aforementioned Castello Brown, further up the hill.  In fact, climbing up and down hills was a consistent theme of the weekend, and the wedding day was no exception.  (People who live their whole lives in the area must have thighs of steel...).  It was a casual reception which allowed the guests to mingle and chat and linger for unseemly amounts of time at the tables of food, which was (broken record time) excellent.  Prosecco was served, of course, along with a really pleasant sparkling red wine. (Yes, sparkling RED. Though Jeremy has pointed out that it's actually called frizzante.) And there was a table of local proscuitto, served in that European way where the whole leg of the pig is displayed on a stand and paper-thin slices are carved off one by one.  And of course there was a whole spread of cheeses which culminated, late in the evening, with the unveiling of a particularly brilliant and decadent form of mozzarella called burrata.  It's made from regular fresh buffalo or cow's milk mozzarella that's formed into a sort of pouch and filled with more mozzarella scraps and fresh cream before being closed up again. This turns it into a rich gooey mess to be scooped up with bread and it is amazing.  Really, you should all go seek out some burrata right now.  Go ahead.  I'll wait.

There was even a demonstration by the head catering guy, who made a fresh batch of traditional Ligurian basil pesto with a mortar and pestle.

Monday, the day after the wedding, was a quiet one in which I tried unsuccessfully to visit the Cinque Terra.  I say unsuccessfully, though I did actually get to Monterosso by midafternoon. I got a late start not because I slept in, but because I faffed around uncertainly for far too long before finally getting on a train, then arrived late enough that I was worried about making it back to Santa Margherita in time to meet up with the gang for pre-dinner drinks.  So there I was, on a sunny day in Monterosso preparing to do the hike to the next town along the coast. But really was quite hot and it was quite late, and the place was positively crammed with tourists because it was a holiday in Italy.  And so, despite the effort of getting there, and the absolutely unforgivable notion that I would come all the way to Italy and make it all the way to the Cinque Terra and then think "Meh, not today", I did in fact think, "Meh, not today", got back on the train, and went back to Santa Margherita.  (Arguments, abuse, death threats, etc... from anyone who's not been to Italy, let alone to the Cinque Terra can be addressed to gostayworkplaylive@gmail.com.)

Here's what I missed. Meh.

Then again, I did have a pretty cool evening, which started with a ride across the hills above Santa Margherita on an electric bike.  They have an excellent cycle hire scheme in the area which includes not just standard issue tank-like hire bikes that you see all over, but also a good number of bikes equipped with electric motors that assist you when you're pedalling.

Pedelec!

It's disconcerting at first, since the motor kicks in automatically, so you've got to be on your toes.  Nonetheless, it's really the only way to go in such a hilly area.  This was brought home to us after we'd breezed across the ridge to a cliff-side bar to watch the sun set over the Mediterranean.  A couple of drinks in we wondered what had happened to one of our number when he finally arrived, late, sweaty-faced and worn out, because his particular hire bike turned out to have a bad motor and he'd had to cycle all the way there under his own steam. We were all heartily impressed with his fortitude and didn't even blink when he ordered two beers at once and settled down to take in the view.

Which was not bad.  And was followed by the longest downhill cycle EVER.  I think I pedalled three times in about 5 km.  And then we went for dinner.  Of course.

Tuesday morning it was back to real life in London, but not before a quick pitstop on the way to the airport in Pisa.  I may have missed the Cinque Terra, but at least I can tick this one off the bucket list:

There's an interesting sociological study to be done at the Leaning Tower having to do with the division between people who have their picture taken holding the tower up and those who appear to be pushing it over.  Fascinating.

After that I had just enough time for one last scoop of gelato before getting the bus to the airport and diving head first back into work, from which I've just resurfaced.  It really was a great weekend: a real treat to see a part of Italy I've never visited before, a chance to hang out with good friends and eat fantastic food, and, most importantly, an honour and a pleasure to be part of such a happy event.

Congratulations Jeremy and Paola, and best wishes for a long and happy life together, filled with love, smooth sailing, and mozzarella.

Off the tourist track: Brockwell Park

A stunning, warm sunny Sunday and a curiously empty (or, more accurately, "steadfastly ignored") To Do list meant that a little while ago I dusted off my sandals, put on short sleeved shirt, and made the five minute walk to enjoy one of Brixton's gems: Brockwell Park.  If Windrush Square and Brixton Market are the bustling urban heart of the neighbourhood, the Brockwell Park is its leafy alter-ego.  And the fact that it's one of London's lesser-known parks means that unlike Hyde Park, Regent's Park, Hampstead Heath, or even Clapham Common, I'd venture to say the Brockwell Park is used and enjoyed almost exclusively by people who live in the area, which makes it feels kind of like our little secret.

It's big! And look, there's a swimming pool!

The park is a an unexpectedly large green space - about 125 acres in total.  I run through it regularly - in sun, rain and snow.  A couple of laps of the 3-ish km outer loop is hilly enough to be a workout, but close enough to home to feel like no big deal.  I’ve hashed through it, done cycle safety lessons there, attended a big top circus, and even raided the gardeners’ rubbish heaps for branches to become part of a very low budget show.  It's also the site of numerous community events, like the Lambeth Country Show, free outdoor film screenings, an annual dog show and frequent fun fairs of various sorts. (It's a charming feature of life here.  In Canada those low-rent itinerant fairs that feature spinning rides, bouncy castles, whack-a-moles games and deep-fried food tend to pop up in suburban shopping mall parking lots.  Here they spread out in parks, which makes the same tired attractions infinitley much more appealing.)

The park, with views north to the Shard.

The history of Brockwell Park dates back to at least the fourteenth century when it was part of St. Thomas' Hospital, then a monastic establishment.  After Henry VIII had his little hissy fit and seized church lands it became part of several private estates, finally settling in the hands of the Tulse family around 1650.  The Tulses are important because they lent their name to the adjacent neighbourhood, Tulse Hill.  (Oh, and Sir Henry Tulse was Lord Mayor of London at one point, but that title changes hands every year so I think that eventually everybody who's really posh gets a crack.)  More important in the history of Brockwell Park is John Blades who eventually came to own the land and who built Brockwell Hall in 1811, and landscaped much of the current park.

Brockwell Hall, at the top of the hill in the middle of the park, has some pretty reasonable views over the city - north at the aforementioned Shard and the City, northwest to Battersea Power Station, and south to the Crystal Palace radio tower.  It also has ice cream!

Brockwell Park was officially opened as a public space in 1892 by the Earl of Roseberry, who actually had a pretty stirring little speech to give at the dedication.  It's remarkably appropriate even today, so I excerpt it for you here:

Now what have you gained in Brockwell Park? There is a negative advantage and there is a positive advantage.  The negative advantage is this - that if we had not been able to preserve Brockwell Park it would soon have been built over.  

We cannot afford to lose any of the large spaces in the metropolis. We have many parks, perhaps more parks than any capital in the world; but every day, gradually and by minute fractions, the process of building over small open spaces, the suburban gardens which are attached to the villas which are every day being pulled down, every day the process of destroying these is going on, and therefore, it is the duty of that vigilant County Council that you have so recently elected to take care that, whenever a neighbourhood shows that it places a due value upon a space by contributing its own share, the Council shall not be remiss in contributing on the part of the general inhabitants of London in securing that open space for ever.

What is the positive gain? Whatever revolution may occur, whatever political change may take place, the face of nature may be transformed; but, whatever happens, this is preserved to you and your descendants for ever as an open space. No landlord can take it from you, no building society can take it from you, no Monarch can take it from you; you are safe for ever and ever. It is with this consideration that I rejoice to be with you today.

Now I formally declare this park open for the enjoyment of the inhabitants of London for ever.  (Here here!)

I spend most of my visits looping around the outside of the park on the perimeter pathways, which go past the Brockwell Lido (pronounced here as LYE-dough).  The lido is one of London's few remaining outdoor swimming pools and is naturally very popular in the summer.  The day I was there people were queued up outside the entrance.  There's also a gym and health club with the mandatory assortment of Pilates, spinning and yoga classes.  The Lido is also home to the Lido Café, which has semi-legendary Sunday brunches and really good burgers, the beef in which has been praised by my sister, who lives in ALBERTA, where they take their beef pretty seriously.

Running between the Lido and the decorative gates at the Herne Hill end of the park is the Brockwell Park Miniature Railway, a 7-1/4 gauge miniature railway running regular services on sunny Sundays in the spring and summer.  (Return tickets £1 each, under twos travel free, first train 11:00am, last train 4:00pm, Oyster cards not accepted.)  They also have the BEST network map ever, showing exactly two stops, which I think they should sell as a fundraiser because I would TOTALLY buy one of those.  I can't find any pictures of it, so you'll just have to take my word for it.  The network map is way cooler than the wooden train sets and battery-operated plastic engines and other miscellaneous stuff they sell now, and they could probably be marked up about 900% and local hipsters would still snap them up.  (If anyone from the BPMR is reading this, there's no charge for that advice, just send me a poster.)

The train... Cute!

I made a quick detour to The Herne Hill farmer's market to pick up a cup of coffee and a satisfyingly large oatmeal raisin cookie, and then found my own little patch of the park to relax in.

Aaaaahhhhh... It was the first time those toes have felt green grass in quite some time.

Despite living so close to the park, it's rare for me to take the time to really explore the whole thing, so I took advantage of the lazy day to discover a few of the parks more hidden spots, which include a walled garden, the existence of which I was previously utterly oblivious to. It's a lovely little spot, and even on a day when the park was as busy as it was, the walled garden was quiet and calm, with benches and gazebos occupied by people happily ensconced with a book or a copy of The Guardian (of course).

The well-hidden gates to the walled garden.

It really was a great day to be in the park.  Every open space was dotted with people spread out on the grass enjoying the sun, including the requisite ration of men with their shirts off.  (A sad and curious habit of the English male.  When the mercury rises above about 15 degrees and the sun comes out they seem incapable of keeping their shirts on, despite the fact that 97% are so pale they are basically translucent, which lasts for about 11 minutes of exposure to the unclouded rays of the sun, after which most turn the colour of a post box.)  There was also a gratifying number of small children with perfect English accents, which I always find charming but also catches me off guard every time.  There's something about an English accent that just seems very grown-up to me - as if it should be acquired later in life. Brockwell Park also boasts a lawn bowling club, a BMX track, a duck pond, an adventure playground, and several public toilets.  There was even - inevitably - a group of people drumming under a large tree.

Seriously, how cute is this?

I took the trouble to have my picture taken in front of the recently restored clocktower at the top of the hill near Brockwell Hall, rested on a bench in the shade where I was gently hit on by a nice but unexciting man named Omar (who has a scrap metal business, an ex-council flat in Chelsea and a beautiful mastiff-like dog named Caesar) and then gradually wandered home, warmed through, relaxed, and feeling quite pleased that I'd had just the sort of Unplanned Nothing Day that always feels particularly rare and delicious.

For RobH

P.S.  As usual, there are more pictures over at Flickr.

It's not rational...

It feels like a hundred yeas ago, and it's hard to believe that I've only been back in the UK full time for about a month.  I’m busily at work on a new show, and my diet actually includes fruits and vegetables at most meals, and I’m running or cycling every day and everything kind of feels… normal.  It’s delicious.  On the other hand, there are a few anecdotes I just have to tell you about Russia, so here goes:

On the fickle nature of hotel laundry:

I've said it before, but that gig was HARD.  The hours were long, we were way behind schedule, and, as I mentioned before, the living conditions were not ideal.  There was one good thing about our hotel though - they did laundry, and they did it cheaply.  The fantastic posh hotel in Moscow also did laundry, but given that it cost about £6 to get a pair of running shorts washed I didn't use that service often.  At the good old Ekodom Hotel in Adler, getting a normal load of laundry washed, dried and folded cost about 70 roubles (£1.25). This was a godsend. Except, of course, there was a catch.  In Russia it seems there's ALWAYS a catch, though this one applied only to women.  I noticed it after I got my first batch of laundry back.

The Ekodom...

Everything seemed normal, but for one small oddity.  All of my underpants had been separated from the rest of the laundry, secured in their own plastic bag (knotted shut) and tucked in with the rest of the load.  I thought this was a bit odd, but at that stage I’d been in Russia long enough that this quirk was barely enough to register on the Russian Weird-o-Meter, so I took them out of the bag, shoved them in the closet, and got on with life.

Later that week I pulled out a pair of underwear and noticed that it wasn't clean.  “Odd," I thought.  "That one must not have made it into the laundry bag."  The next week I sent another bag of laundry in, including underwear.  Again, it came back with all underwear neatly sequestered, and this time I confirmed that NONE of it had, in fact, been laundered.  I marched down to the front desk with my bag of dirty underwear and asked them to please send it back because when I sent my clothes in to be cleaned I naively assumed that the people I was paying for the service would actually clean ALL of them.

The next night I stopped back to pick up my clean underwear.  And it's worth noting here that this was probably at about one o'clock in the morning, after a fourteen-ish hour day, so my nerves were slightly raw.  And then... then the truth came out.  Once again my underwear was not clean, but now there was an explanation (or what passes for an explanation in Russia). They simply didn't do women's underpants.  At all.  No exceptions.  Men's underwear was no problem.  Other women's undergarments were ok too.  But women's underpants?  No way.

As I stood at the front desk, mouth gaping, trying to think of something to say, a female colleague who was also staying at the hotel said something to the effect of, "Oh yeah. The No Underwear Thing.  Didn't anyone tell you?"  Well, no.  No they didn't.  And what kind of a ridiculous freaking rule is that?  I trudged back up to my little orange shoebox of a room clutching my plastic bag full of dirty underwear and sat on the edge of my bed and tried hard not to cry.  "Typical," I thought.  "I'm working on the biggest show on earth, under huge time pressure in bizarre circumstances, and the thing that almost pushes me over the edge is the fact that they won't wash my knickers."  And then I snapped myself out of it, probably with the help of a drink.  And the next morning I filled the bathroom sink with hot water and dish soap and I hand-washed my underwear and hung it to dry in the shower.  And I did that every three days for the next ten weeks.

The bathroom sink and shower in question

I can't remember whether we were talking about this exact little quirk of life, or some other equally odd happening, but I was having a conversation with a colleague about this sort of thing and he said one of his suppliers had coined a term for when he was confronted by the sheer bloody-minded, unbelievable frustration of it all.  "It's not rational," he'd say.  "It's Russian-al".

Truer words were never spoken.


On overcoming obstacles:

I've already mentioned the problems we had with food on the Olympic Park site. (But I didn’t mention this… one day in the canteen one of the dinner options included LIVER FRITTERS. Seriously?  How is that even a thing?)  And I mentioned my successful method for smuggling in food stuffs to help me survive.  It also happens that I had a reasonable stash of that most Canadian soul food imaginable - Kraft Dinner.  At some point along the way I realised that there were microwave instructions on the KD box, which was a revelation.  While I didn't have a microwave in the hotel room (they were forbidden, of course) we did have them in the office.  So I decided that I'd risk trying to smuggle in a box of Kraft Dinner.  I had enough boxes that if I lost one it wouldn’t be an unmitigated tragedy, and the idea that I might be able to stop for a few minutes and have a bowl of KD in the middle of the maelstrom was a powerful draw.  So I opened up the box and poured the macaroni into a ziploc bag (also imported from Canada) and shoved it into the toe of one of my big fuzzy socks.  The envelope of cheese powder went into the other sock, and both got twisted and turned inside out so that it looked like I was simply carrying two pairs of big fuzzy socks through the security checkpoint.  Perfectly normal, or at least normal-ish.

One of a number of exceptionally long queues to get through security.  We're heading for the small square white building.  The wacky castle is... well, we just called it Wacky Castle.  It seemed to be associated with an amusement park right outside the Olympics Park gates.

No matter, I got in.  (As I've mentioned before, the Big Fuzzy Sock Method was one hundred percent successful.  The only time I had food confiscated was when I forgot I had a Snickers bar in my jacket pocket, which really doesn’t count.)  Later that day, after a really tough afternoon, I finally found time to sit down and contemplate how to assemble my contraband KD.  I had a fairly large plastic tupperware sort of bowl (but a Russian one, so the lid didn’t actually stay on).  And we had water coolers that dispensed really hot water, so I was able to fill the bowl with the right amount of water and then pour in the macaroni in preparation for the microwave.

Of course this was the point of not return.  Once the macaroni hits the water there’s no going back.  No chance that I could change my mind and postpone.  It was now or never for that Kraft Dinner.  So I turned around to put my plastic bowl of happiness in the microwave. Except… the microwave was GONE.  Both machines that had been sitting on the table next to my desk for weeks had vanished.  I stood there, stricken.  A colleague noticed my expression and asked what was wrong.  (Or perhaps I just might have attracted some attention by exclaiming, rather more loudly than might have been appropriate, “Are you fucking KIDDING ME????”)  Whatever it was, I soon found out that the Russian catering department had decided to start feeding the cast hot meals and to that end had commandeered every microwave in the building and taken them to the rehearsal site to heat up food.  Of course.

So let's review:  I’d managed to get this Kraft Dinner all the way from Canada.  I’d smuggled it in my socks to get it on site.  I had the time, the bowl, the hot water… and yet still Russia had managed to thwart this tiny bit of homey happiness.  Once again, just like with UnderwearGate, I almost cried.  It really is the little things that kill you sometimes.

But wait!  This story has a happy ending.  It turned out that one lone microwave had survived the cull.  So I carried my precious bowl across the compound to the canteen, where I found the skankiest microwave I’ve ever encountered.  And I put that bowl in and watched it boil over.  And I cleaned up the boiled over sticky pasta water with a thousand paper napkins. And it boiled over again.  And I cleaned it up again.  And then I carried the burning hot bowl back to my desk and mixed in the cheese stuff and a bit of milk and mayonnaise (because I didn’t have butter) and damn, it was GOOD.

And actually, that’s kind of what it was like a lot of the time.  You’d expend a massive, ridiculous, disproportionate amount of effort to make something happen.  And then just when you thought it was sorted out, six other things would get in the way.  And you’d just have to put your head down and keep plugging, and eventually something pretty ok happened.

Like this.  These light-up spinning head-dress things were props, and despite numerous ridiculous obstacles, they ended up looking really cool.

A Day Out: Bekonscot Model Village

I'm pretty sure I've still got things to say about Russia, but for now it's a Bank Holiday weekend and the weather is uncharacteristically warm and dry (locals will understand that a entire Bank Holiday Weekend that is NOT punctuated by untimely rain showers is a rare and precious thing) and I had the cutest, bloggiest thing drop into my lap, so today it’s all aboard for Bekonscot Model Village.

Bekonscot Model Village.  It does exactly what it says on the tin - it's a model of a village.  

A tiny little world of the most exquisite Englishness imaginable.

It was a kind of charmed day.  As I said, the weather was perfect.  And the train to Beaconsfield (BECKons-field), the real town in which tiny Bekonscot is located, leaves from Marylebone Station, which is a pleasant journey on one bus from Brixton.  And then when I arrived at the station, just as I was taking in the unpleasantly long queue for the ticket machines, a railway agent approached and siphoned off a few of us, allowing me to skip the queue and make it to the train that was leaving, fortuitously, in 5 minutes.  Then I found a front-facing window seat in the Quiet Car and opened up a fresh crossword and watched as the English countryside rolled past the window and was really, really content.

There’s a short walk from the station to the model village, which is set, oddly, on a residential street.  This is because the village is the work of one Roland Callingham, and the whole thing is set on the grounds of his former home.  A model railroad enthusiast, Callingham was apparently forced to move his extensive layout (For Grampy and Ted: Gauge 1) out of the house and into the garden when his wife declared, “Either the railroad goes outside or you do!” Working alongside his staff (the gardener, cook, maid and chauffeur… rough life!) they began to create a setting for the trains, which gradually grew into such an attraction for guests of the house that the swimming pool was turned into a lake and the surrounding rockery into undulating hills.  The village continued to expand to its present 1.5 acre size, though surrounding properties on all size prevent any increase in the overall area.  Though originally conceived as a private folly for Callingham and his friends, word of Bekonscot soon got around and they began taking donations from visitors in 1930.  It continues to donate all proceeds to various charities and to date it has collected about 5.5 millions pounds (At £9.50 per head for adults, that's not such a stretch).  And it remains to this day, the oldest model village in the world.

The aforementioned lake, now transformed into the seafront town of Southpool, complete with lighthouse, Yacht Club and of course, the RNLI.

Built at 1:12 scale, the detail and charm of the place is impressive.  It now comprises six individual towns linked by an impressive amount of rail track, all set in a 1930s time warp that makes it even more appealing.  Vintage bi-planes sit on the grass outside the airport, steam engines chug along the rails, and the dairyman still delivers in a hand-drawn cart.  It's hopelessly engrossing.

Naturally Bekonscot is hugely popular with kids, mostly the under-6 set it seems.  I was a bit nervous, expecting that on a Bank Holiday Sunday it would be a screaming nightmare of over-excited, cranky, screaming children, 10-15% of whom might be in full melt-down at any time. In fact, there were a lot of kids with parents and grandparents (I think I may have been the only person there alone, which made me feel slightly creepy).  Luckily, there was almost none of the screamy horribleness that make one want to cringe and flee.  It seems the tiny village is beguiling enough that most everyone - kids and adults alike - was just content to wander and look and point out new little discoveries and watch for the next train to trundle past and be pleasant and happy.  I left when it was starting to get a bit too crowded on the loop of narrow paths that meanders past each part of the village, but even then people were polite and patient and it was all just... nice.

People being... just nice.

The railway - the original reason for Bekonscot's existence - really is extensive.  Apparently covering 10 scale miles, the trains run constantly - through tunnels, over bridges, and into and out of stations.  It's the trains that the kids seem to love to most.  There's even a video taken from the "driver's eye view" of a train making the rounds of the whole site, which gives you a really nice look at the scale of the place.  (And for those interested in more details about the railroad in particular - Grampy and Ted, this is for you - here's the track layout and more details about signal boxes and relay cabinets and such.)

The industry of the tiny people of Bekonscot is absorbing.  There's a furniture plant, coal mine, dairy farm, oast house, cement works, hospital, nunnery with garden, and several schools, hotels, churches, markets and pubs.  There are fishermen, farmers, removals men, estate agents, and builders at work on a partly finished house.  The village has a windmill and a watermill.  And the members of the Bekonscot Fire Brigade have been battling a fire in the thatched roof of a cottage more or less forever.  There are even three castles (one pleasingly ruined and crumbly, open to visitors for 2d (Adults) and 1d (Children) according to the sign).

The roof of the burning building periodically emits puffs of smoke!

Neither do the Lilliputians lack for recreational activities; the place is positively bursting with wholesome diversions of every sort.  A game of cricket is underway, along with football, rugby, field hockey and net ball.  There's tennis, croquet, and bowls at the Country Club. There are sheepdog trials, horse racing, equestrian, canoeing, rowing, yachting and sailing, fox hunting, golf, polo, archery, and netball.  The smallest of the residents take part in scout camps and dance around maypoles.  And Bekonscotians of all sizes are depicted relaxing on the beach, camping out in miniature caravans, attending concerts at the pavillion on the pier, strolling through a remarkably well-stocked zoo, going to the circus, riding in cable cars, floating narrowboats through a set of locks in a canal, and picnicing alongside oddly outsized bluebells and shrubbery. They can even get lost in a hedge maze.

And there's an extensive country fair with spinning ferris wheels

And of course, inevitably... Morris Dancing

My very favourite discovery at Bekonscot was the depiction of an industrious group of archeologists camped out across the path from the coal mine, busily excavating what looked like a Roman villa, complete with mosaic floor and the remains of the caldarium.  They're also just down the hill from a giant (well, relatively speaking) prehistoric chalk outline of a horse on a hillside.  It's just really clever.

There's a very whimsical nature to the whole thing, reinforced by the propensity to plaster the place with the worst possible puns.  The grocer is Chris P. Lettis and the baker is Ivan Huven.

It really pays to look closely

It's clear why many people come back again and again; first as children, then bringing children of their own.  The place is supremely nostalgic.  Apparently during the 80 year evolution of the village more modern buildings began to be created, including some concrete monstrosity sort of things.  Happily, good sense prevailed and a strict 1930s time frame was applied, which is a large part of the charm of the place.

Of course there are the usual other attractions - a tea room, a gift shop, an adventure playground, and a larger gauge railway you can ride for £1 a head.  You can also wander past the workshops where models are built and maintained, which I thought was great.  They should have those open on the weekends so you can see the staff and volunteers building whatever new thing is coming.  I even caught a glimpse of the Spring 2014 To Do List, which was mostly crossed off (well done gang) and included such tasks as "Hardware Shop - secure window-box" and "Flamingo Pool - paint perimeter".  Great.

When I'd had my fill, I left and decided to walk into the Old Town of Beaconsfield for a nice cup of coffee and lunch, which promised to be only a 20 minute walk.  Sadly, though much of the old town has a look eerily similar to that of Bekonscot, it's all Carphone Warehouses and Pizza Express and charity shops and high-end kitchen decor places, with a large round-about and 4 lanes of traffic cutting right down the main road.  I was hoping to find a nice local place (perhaps called T.N. Kayks) where I could relax and recharge before seeking the train home. Alas, I had to settle for a ham and cheese toastie at Costa Coffee.  But by then my mood was good enough that even that was pleasant, and I spent the 20-minute wait for the train back to London relaxing on a bench on the platform in the bright sun reading a new book.  All in all, an excellently bloggy day and the kind of thing I've missed very very much.



P.S.  There are a ton more photos over at Flickr - Bekonscot is a magnificently photogenic place, especially on a sunny day, and I taxed my camera to the point where both batteries died.  Check it out.

Thoughts on Russia

First things first.  This was NOT my fault.  Not even my department.  Nothing to do with me.

And the rumour that the guy responsible showed up dead in his hotel room the next day? Complete rubbish.

Moving right along... Hi!  I know it's been a while, but I did warn you.  Here's a bit of catch-up: I finished work in Russia on March 21, spent a quick weekend in Moscow with the lovely Moscow hashers, had a short stopover in a London to do laundry and re-pack, and then was off for a week of vacation in New York City, followed by two weeks of visiting with family in Canada.  I finally got back to London and unpacked my suitcase for what I hope will be a long long time just a week ago.  So the job ended about a month ago, and yet it seems like a hundred years.   For those of you who haven't been paying attention, I was living in Russia and working on the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.  All of it feels impossibly, deliciously distant in a way that I wouldn't have believed when I was in the middle of it.  I arrived in Moscow at the beginning of August 2013 and I left at the end of March.  Eight months, including a punishing stretch of more than five months without a trip out of the country.

Me posing with some rings in Sochi.  I'm smiling because this was taken on the day before I left!

I'm struggling to know where to start.  Astute Go Stay Work Play Live readers will remember that I worked on the ceremonies for London 2012.  So this wasn't my first ceremony, and in many ways it was quite similar to London.  I suppose any ceremony is going to have the same elements.  Unrealistic schedules that shift continuously, gruelling hours, a determination to push the bounds of the possible, a scale that boggles the mind.  That kind of thing.  Maybe what I need to do is focus on what was different...

Different thing #1:

This will be stating the blindingly obvious, but did I mention I was in RUSSIA?  With the London ceremonies, even when it was crazy, I was still going home every night.  That was a huge comfort.  I slept in a familiar bed.  I cooked and ate normal food.  And on the rare occasions when had a day off, I had friends to visit and a normal life that I could dip back into, even if only briefly.

In Russia I lived for the whole time in various hotels ranging from gorgeously well-serviced (Moscow) to eminently pleasant (Krasnodar) to three star orange-wallpapered, saggy-furnitured shoebox (Sochi).

The orange shoebox.  It was quite a come-down from Krasnodar and Moscow, though I did eventually make my peace with it.  Not that I had a choice.

Also, in London there were people in my life who had nothing to to with ceremonies.  I saw them occasionally when I dragged myself in from a long night and they were up finishing the end of a bottle of wine and I was reminded that normal life continued for some people.  In Russia I got on the staff bus in the morning with the same people I'd work alongside all day. We ate lunch together.  We ate supper together.  We moaned and complained together.  We waited for the bus home together.  And then when we got home to the same hotel, the only people to have a drink and unwind with were the same people you'd just spent the whole day with.  Luckily, there were many excellent people and I formed some really great friendships. But still, it was relentless and unnatural.

Different thing #2:

Once again in the blindingly obvious category, most people in Russia speak Russian. There was a large contingent of international English speaking consultants (me included... we were all there in what was technically called an advisory role...), and an equally large number of local Russian people, some of whom were bilingual and some who were not.  The Props Team in particular seemed quite integrated.  Our international and local Russian staff worked alongside each other every day, which happened less in departments that had mostly international staff and contractors.  And of course outside the office on the street, it was all Russian all the time.

"Wait a minute," you astute GSWPL readers might say. "Didn't you take a few month of intensive one-on-one Russian language lessons before you went?  I'm sure I remember a whining blog post about that…" Of course you're right.  I was one of a handful of international staff who had made an effort to take formal lessons (I think there were four of us) and it definitely made a difference.  By the end of my eight months I could make myself understood most of the time with out uni-lingual Russian crew, though I was largely limited to bread-and-butter stuff like, "After rehearsal we need all props in Tent B." Or "This is very very important."  Or frequently "I'm tied, hungry and cold." Not bad, eh?  Unfortunately, as is the case with my French, I speak Russian much better than I understand it.  So while I can phrase a comprehensible question, parsing the answer was often beyond me.  Nonetheless, it made a difference.

For instance, the Transport department had English and Russian staff, but it was the Russians who really held the reins.  So whenever I needed a truck for one of the endless back-and-forth moves of props from the stadium to the rehearsal venues and back (honestly, it was like we were doing laps with them) I had to speak to Transport.  Eventually the English Transport Manager just said, "Look, you just need to go across the hall and talk to Albina, because that's all I'm going to do anyway.  She doesn't speak English, but someone will translate for you." So across the hall I went and started to make my request in English, but when I understood some of the related Russian conversation and responded in Russian... well!  The transformation was miraculous.  Suddenly it was all, "You speak Russian! Sit down! Where did you learn Russian? What do you need again?"  I felt a bit like a dog walking on its hind legs, but on the other hand I never had trouble getting a truck again.  So there you go.  Like anywhere, if you make a little honest effort, people respond.

A very important word!  РЕКВИЗИТ means PROPS, of course. (And the bushy white thing with a star on top is a ёлка.)

Different thing #3:

Food.  Or, to be more accurate, Lack of food.  In Moscow it was no problem.  There was the lavish breakfast buffet at the hotel and there were normal (-ish) grocery stores stocked with (mostly) familiar things.  In Sochi… not so much.  We lived in a little town called Adler, part way between the city of Sochi and the Olympic Park.  Adler is a funny town.  Its main reason for existence is to service Russian summer holidaymakers with its proliferation of bars and souvenir shops and its unfriendly rocky beach.  Being there in the off-season meant that it had a lonely and forgotten vibe

The beach, on New Year's Day.

Anyways, the supermarkets were not great in Adler.  And of course you might notice from the picture of my hotel room that I did not have a kitchen.  I anticipated this fact before arriving and actually bought a portable toaster oven sort of thing that I schlepped from London to Moscow to Krasnodar and finally to Sochi.  And what did I find out when I got there?  The hotel had banned all such devices.  Of course.

Here’s the device in action briefly in Krasnodar, cooking up a pot of Kraft Dinner on one of the two top elements.  It was a great appliance.

We never got a really clear reason WHY this was the case.  Sometimes they cited fire regulations.  Sometimes they claimed there wasn’t enough power.  Sometimes they said that you could use a device if it had an automatic shut-off timer, like a kettle or a toaster.  My next-door neighbour and partner-in-crime Gerald (pictured above, posing on the pier on New Year's Day) cleverly bought a multi-cooker that was like a quick crockpot sort of thing.  It seemed to tick all the boxes and we enjoyed one really nice meal out of it before it, too, was banned.

Add to this less-than-ideal hotel situation a total prohibition on bringing food or drink into the Olympic Park.  Total.  Every day we had to line up at the security gates for an airport-style x-ray and pat-down.  Every day people had food confiscated.  Some people even had packs of gum or breath mints taken away.  And sometimes this was after we’d stood in line for 45 minutes just to get to the point where they’d take your stuff.  It was really dehumanising. Most people developed systems for smuggling in small amounts of food (mine involved balling things up in a particularly thick pair of sock.  "What?  Food?  Nope.  No food here Mr. Russian Policeman.  Just some warm socks for later.  Yep.  Nothin' to see here...")  Even though I was one hundred percent successful in my smuggling efforts, it generally wasn’t enough to keep body and soul together which meant that at least once a day you’d have to take your chances on the staff canteen.

The canteen was... Overcrowded.  Overpriced.  Overcooked.   Just really disheartening.  The fixed price was 300 roubles (About £6 or $9).  For that you got a salad course, usually a choice of something heavy on the mayonnaise and potato, or a plate of scary sliced luncheon meat, or a bowl in which beets featured prominently.  Then soup (though only at lunch), which was usually thin and highly average.  Borsht.  Solyanka.  Creamed vegetable.  Meh.  The main course was usually the worst.  A few kinds of potato or rice, or sometimes a boiled vegetable. Plus a choice of some kind of dodgy meat product, often a sort of processed cutlet, or maybe fish, or maybe chicken.  It was all just maddening and nasty a lot of the time.

Clockwise, from top left: cream-of-something soup, pototo-mayonnaisey salad, bread roll, glass of compote (a juice-like beverage) and a plate of rice with random sauce accompanied by processed meat cutlet of some kind.  Typical.  You wouldn't go hungry, but then again, you might just end up with scurvy.

In fairness, they did improve things after a few near-riots caused by crushingly long line-ups and inflexible opening hours.  Eventually you could get fresh fruit and yogurt and take-away pizza and real coffee.  But they never relaxed the food ban and it was always an issue.

I could probably go on and on about the food but maybe that’s enough for now.  Just looking at those photos makes profoundly grateful that I can walk around the corner to a large grocery store where I can buy fresh spears of asparagus and sweet potatoes and spinach and, well, this exchange of texts with Gerald on my first day back kind of sums it up:

I don't know why, but Russian cheese is kinda awful.

So yeah, I think that's enough for now.  Enough to start giving you an idea of life in the Ceremonies Salt Mine that was Sochi 2014.  And enough to get me back on the blogging train. I might just skip ahead and tell you about my trip to New York next, or I might tell you some more random tales of Russia, but either way I'll try to do it soon.

It's good to be back.

From Moscow with Love, Part Two

I've scraped up a few minutes to get this post together, but I think we all need to get comfortable with the idea that my blogging days are pretty much over until this gig is done.  I might get a chance to compose a few words over Christmas, but I'm not making any promises. (Especially now that Santa is scheduled to bring some very very very overdue props on Christmas Day, which will require immediate assembly and re-fit, thus effectively killing the three days off we were scheduled to have for the holiday.  Ho Ho Ho.)  For now though, let's look back on a rainy Saturday in Moscow, which seems like a lifetime ago.

When last we left our intrepid heroes (me and Gerald), we'd just strolled out of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and onto the pedestrian bridge across the Moscow river.  Our next stop was perhaps Moscow's most infamous landmark, a colossus of steel, bronze and copper unveiled in 1997.

The Peter the Great Statue was commissioned to mark 300 years of the Russian navy, and has been controversial from the beginning.  Certainly it's, err... large.  At 98 metres high it's the eighth tallest statue in the world, positively dwarfing the Statue of Liberty (a mere 46m, not including the pedestal) but falling well short of assorted Buddhas and emperors scattered about the Far East.  And I don't think anyone could challenge the assertion that the design lacks a certain... refinement.  It frankly bristles with spars and flags and assorted naval accoutrements, and Peter is weirdly outsized, making him look like he's riding a toy boat.  In 2008 it made a Top Ten list of the ugliest statues in the world.

Mostly, though, I think Muscovites hate the statue because Moscow is a very odd place to put a statue commemorating Peter the Great.  After all, Peter did move the capital of Russia away from Moscow (which he hated) to St. Petersburg, a city he named after himself.  So you can understand why Muscovites might be touchy about having a 300 foot tall black, spiky thing commemorating him in the middle of their city.  There's also a rumour that the statue was originally designed to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's first voyage, but was repurposed with a Russian theme when no American buyer could be found.  The designer - Zurab Tsereteli - denies this claim.  And, in an interesting tie-in to Part One of this blog post from a hundred years ago, Zurab Tsereteli was also one of the designers of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.  Apparently he was a great buddy of Yury Luzhkov, the Mayor of Moscow at the time.   After Luzhkov left office, the new city government offered to relocate the statue to St. Petersburg, but the good folks up north politely declined the offer.

Moving right along (and after a brief moment being trapped on the island that is home to the Peter the Great Statue) Gerald and I continued our rainy walk along the south bank of the Moscow River.  Our next stop was one we stumbled onto by accident, but turned out to be quite excellent.  Fallen Monument Park is an appropriately bizarre and unexpected little corner of Moscow situated in the green space surrounding the huge Tretyakov Gallery.  According to Wikipedia: "In October 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, smaller socialist realism statues of Soviet leaders and unidentifiable workers and peasants were removed from their pedestals, hauled to the park and left in their fallen form."

As you can see, they've now been reinstated.

Alongside the obligatory statues of Russian leaders, including lots and lots of Lenins and Stalins and a smattering of Kruschevs and even a Brezhnev or two, there were also some Pushkins and many other unidentifiable folks.  It was a marvellous place for a photo op, and since I was with a buddy I got a great shot of me, my fuzzy hat, and Lenin.  (Just for you, Rob H.)

And how could you not take a picture of this?

The statue park was a lovely unexpected find, and even though it was wet and cold, we had a great time wandering in the mud and posing.  It's definitely a spot worth seeking out the next time you've got an hour to kill in central Moscow.

Then a little further along, in front of the main gallery building, Gerald was compelled to take a photo of this:

We like to call this one "Does this hammer make my ass look big?"  

(Answer: No, no, a thousand times, no.  
And, Mr. Soviet Hammer Guy, are you free for drinks later?)

As the sunlight started to fade, we finally made our way into Gorky Park, our ultimate destination.  I'd been through the park on a couple of runs earlier in the summer, and was supremely impressed with the renovations they've done since I first visited Moscow only a few years ago.  Astute Go See Run Eat Drink readers will remember that Gorky Park was a sort of run down and seedy amusement park back then, populated by Whack-a-Mole games, the obligatory garden-sized train set, and one sorry camel.  I'm happy to say that the park has turned around completely.  In the summer there are big areas of lush grass covered with giant beanbag chairs.  And there are restaurants and concerts and bright lights and all manner of friendly diversions.  But in the winter? Ah, in the winter, it's even better.

I should have realised that the Russians would do winter well, as evidenced by the marvellous construction that popped up in Gorky Park sometime after the temperatures starting falling. The area that used to house the big beanbags is now covered in the largest outdoor skating rink I've ever seen.

This was just one section.  And I think that forest of coloured poles in the middle must have been some kind of light sculpture, though we didn't see it light up.

The whole ice area is surrounded by raised wooden walkways that let onlookers stroll around watching the action on the ice below.  It was fantastic.  Little did we know that the most fantastic part was yet to come.

LIGHTS!  UNDER THE ICE! Chasing, colours LED lights installed UNDER THE FREAKIN' ICE!  As a Canadian I tend to think we've got a bit of a monopoly of the celebration of winter, but Russia, I take my toque off to you.  That ice rink at Gorky Park was a revelation.

And just when I thought it couldn't get cooler, I realised that the ice extended for approximately 8 zillion miles, and ALL OF IT had those lights.  Seriously, seriously cool.

So Gerald and I strolled through Gorky Park, which was genuinely magical, especially after dark.  And we made plans to come back and skate, which never came to fruition, and we eventually made our way across a funny pedestrian bridge and back to the Metro, having walked about 10km in the cold and having had an unplanned but fantastic day in Moscow.

That Saturday already feels like a hundred years ago.  I've been in Krasnodar for 3 weeks now and will make the move to Sochi in just 8 days.  Krasnodar has been lovely.  There are shops and restaurants and cafés a short walk from the hotel, and we've finally got into a bit of a routine with rehearsals.  Of course this means that it's almost time to pack up and move to the next part.  That's always the way with these gigs.  You start a new phase and you scramble and rush to figure everything out and just when you start to get a handle on it, everything changes again and you're back to scrambling and rushing.  But first it'll be Christmas in Krasnodar, and a tiny bit of a break, and maybe even a turkey dinner and a bit of mulled wine and a few gingerbread cookies.