Travel

We arrived this morning in Italy, which makes us very lucky people.

Everything is different here. It’s like Brigadoon. You would think that air is air, sky is sky, light is light – it’s the same wherever you go, the same world, right? Nah. Italy is enchanted. They even speak a different language over here. Crazy, no?

Today – to tide over my jet-lagged body until dinner – I had half a salami sandwich. That’s all we had in the house at that point. I sliced a thin piece of whole grain bread off the loaf, slapped three or four slices of salami on it, folded it in half and took a bite. It’s not the same, baby.

Nowhere else in the world does a salami sandwich taste like this.

I took my sandwich outside to look at our vegetable garden and I noticed that our cherry tree had ripe cherries on it. Crazy, no? The problem is that it’s a big tree, which means that most of the good fruit is ten, fifteen feet off the ground.

So I had some time to kill in Europe before my boyfriend (now husband) was to join me on our first international adventure. While I "knew" French from high school and college, I was not proficient or confident enough to spend two weeks by myself in a country where I could not really understand or be understood. I could kick my wine-loving self now, but c'est la vie. England was too expensive as a solo traveler, so I decided to go to Ireland.

I didn't know much about Ireland, but it looked beautiful, the people had a friendly reputation, the food wasn't too weird (I was a picky eater back then) and most of all they spoke English. Plus the train system was so extensive and affordable I could see the sights without having to drive on the wrong side of the road - though I would consistently try to get in the passenger / driver side when I was over there, much to the cabbies irritation and my embarrassment.

While this was many years ago, these are a few things that have stuck with me from that trip.

1) Nature can't reach that distinct color of green - and it is unparalleled - without it raining…a lot. Like everyday. Not ALL DAY, every day, but for some time every day. It was nice coming from a place where it rains maybe 15 days a year. You don't see that color in Southern California EVER. On the flip side of that, 70 degrees is a perfectly acceptable temperature to sunbath as long as it's sunny. I was wearing a jacket, the Dubliners were as naked as they could get away with in a public park. I guess you have to take your sun worshipping when you can get it.

The state line runs down the middle of Kansas City, one part in Kansas, one in Missouri.  And even though most of the famous barbecue joints are in Missouri, because of the proximity, you can easily vote in Kansas and eat barbecue for lunch in Missouri, or visa versa.  A little thing like the state line doesn’'t divide barbecue lovers.  Here then, is a quick run down of my favorite barbecue joints in two states and one metropolitan area.

This past weekend I was in San Francisco for The 8th Annual Sketchfest. This was a two week long Comedy Festival with comic performers ranging from Stand-up, One Person Shows, Improv Groups, Sketch Companies and then there were shows that sort of defied description. Some of those were the ones I took part in. 

I was lucky enough to see a few shows besides our own.  I saw The Lampshades; the best fake lounge act I’ve seen in a long time.  The physical work they do is sublime and hilarious. I took a peek at 2-Headed Dog, but they were doing a sketch that had three men running around in their underpants and little else. They were dancing in a manner that had their peculiar distributions of body fat jiggle in a way that caused me to run out of the theatre.  I’m not saying I’m the Venus DeMilo, but I don’t choose to subject anyone to the sight of my sorry flesh sac.

The Theme Park Improv Show had Scott Adsit from 30 Rock and Oscar Nunez from The Office. They were outstanding, but what was really impressive was two of the performers in the troupe were the event promoters. You just never figure people that talented would have it together enough to pull something like this off. They did some of the best improv I’ve seen in a long time.