A Letter to the TSA

Some of you have read the first edition of this, but I'm off to Hawaii today so I thought it was apropos.  Aloha!


Dear TSA,

I want to thank you for the fine job you're doing keeping our country safe from the terrorists that are every day trying to sneak onto our airplanes and destroy our lives.  I was particularly impressed with the TSA agent in Philadelphia who threw away my $20 water bottle because of the two inches of liquid left in it.  My offer to drink the offending liquid was clearly a bluff, and he did not succumb to my feminine wiles.  I'm sure all of the passengers on that flight would join me in thanking you for your diligence in ferreting out real threats to our national security.

I'm afraid, though, that your latest attempt at security--the full body scanner--is simply not adequate.  If we have learned anything, it's that people determined to terrorize will heartlessly figure out a way around our technology.  So rather than waiting for someone to fool the full body scanner, allow me to propose what I believe will be an eventuality anyway: nude flights.  This is clearly the only way for us to really be safe.  If all passengers simply pack their clothes away upon entering the airport and remain nude until receiving a blanket on the plane (for a small fee, of course) then we can all breathe a little easier knowing that the person next to us has nothing to hide.

There may be some concern that this is a gross violation of personal privacy, but I do not believe you have much to worry about there.  Some people may protest, some people may even threaten to stop flying altogether, but the vast majority of American citizens will see the reasonableness of, and necessity for, this plan and will be more than willing to give up a little of their freedom to secure their safety. 

I am confident that you will see the wisdom of this plan and look forward to seeing its implementation (especially since I usually travel with my husband, and he's been working out!).

Sincerely,
Cyra Benedict

Fail-adelphia

For a history nerd there are few American cities more thrilling than Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Since that's where the United States was born, it's about as historical as this country gets.  On every corner there's another old building with another plaque explaining that Henry Whoever lived there in Whatever Year and was important to the birth of the nation for Whichever Reason.  It's amazing.

Also amazing: Philly Cheesesteaks.   Not as amazing: Philadelphians' sudden transformation into a Stalin/Mao lovechild if you dare to disrespect the cheesesteak by attempting a special order. 

On the corner of E Passyunk & S 9th are Philadelphia's two oldest cheesesteak stands: Pat's King of Steaks and Geno's Steaks.  Each uses a different cut of steak with different seasonings, each specializes in a different cheese (provolone or whiz?), each claims to be the best in the city (and claims a number of loyal customers) and each will look at you like you've suddenly donned a PETA sandwich board if you ask for your cheesesteak without bread.

I was diagnosed with a gluten intolerance in August of 2009, after seven months of flu-like symptoms.  At home I've adjusted pretty well to the new diet, but finding food on the go is definitely a challenge, and there are some regional specialties that I really miss--fish & chips (although I hear there's a place in Portland that has GF fish & chips.  Stay tuned.), and Philly cheesesteaks.  Having gone to college outside of Pittsburgh I often spent vacations on the east side of the state, and I was very much looking forward to re-experiencing a "real" cheesesteak and introducing them to Matthew.

There we are, on the corner of E Passyunk & S 9th, enjoying a fabulous day with some of my best college buddies, sure that taking the steak and the cheese and throwing it in a cup instead of a hoagie roll is not going to be a problem.  Apparently, we had underestimated how much the need to maintain the purity of the cheesesteak would trump our ready $10, because both places cold-heartedly denied my friend and I the teeny adjustment that would have allowed us to join our friends in experiencing the only interesting thing in Philadelphia that's less than 100 years old.  Not only were we denied, we were barked a crushing "NO!" while both Pat and Geno ignored our crestfallen faces and turned their attention to more worthy customers.  So while the rest of our group sat in a nearby park, blissfully chowing down on the cheesesteaks, comparing Pat's to Geno's, provolone to whiz, we mournfully stabbed at our less-than-exciting enchiladas and tamales from the taco stand next door.  Epic fail, City of Brotherly Love.  Epic fail.

Fortunately, the Philadelphia food scene was able to redeem itself when we visited Amada that evening, Iron Chef Jose Garces' tapas restaurant.  I must admit, I'm a bit of a Food Network whore.  Tell me that a restaurant was started by a chef I've seen on TV and I will eagerly empty my savings account to eat there.  And Amada did not disappoint (although if Matt hadn't had two cheesesteaks that afternoon we may have had to dip into our savings!  Never go to a tapas place on a totally empty stomach.  You will spend $200.  Guaranteed.)  They even had a gluten free menu!  With every bite of their perfectly cured meats love was restored.

It was a dark and stormy night--

--and four Americans were driving around the Isle of Anglesey with a cabbie who didn't speak any kind of English I had ever heard, looking for lodging on what turned out to be the only weekend of the year that Holyhead has any real need to even offer overnight accommodations.  But let's start from the beginning.

I credit (and you can blame) much of my current love for travel to my aunt, who dragged me to Ireland in the first place.  She taught me that travel doesn't have to be some esoteric idea that one dreams of "doing someday," but can be a part of your regular existence if you keep yourself open to new experiences and jump at opportunities as they arise (which is how we  once found ourselves crammed on a hill in sub-freezing temperatures with 15,000 other people waiting for a groundhog to appear, but that's a different story).  She also taught me, the hard way, that sometimes you need just a little bit of a plan.

Our trip to Ireland wasn't all  pub songs and museums, we were actually there to perform a new oratorio by composer Andrew T. Miller.  Through a long, and somewhat mundane, series of events, we found ourselves part of the choir, so there we were.  But with a day off from rehearsals we thought we should seize the opportunity to get another stamp in our passports, and we boarded the ferry from Dublin to Holyhead, Isle of Anglesey, Wales.

I know a few things about Wales: Wales has a prince, and Welsh is the most ridiculous looking language on the planet.  Really, that's about all there is to know about Wales, so I figured we were in good shape as we crossed the Irish Sea.  It turns out there's one more thing you should know: there are no hotel rooms available anywhere within 20 miles of Holyhead on the third weekend in August.  Trust me.  I've looked for one.

We step out of the Holyhead ferry terminal and are greeted by.............nothing.  No restaurants, no pubs, not even any streetlights.  Just dark emptiness for as far as the eye can see.  Apparently the ferry we were on was just bringing all of the Welsh tourists back home.  Dubliners know better.  What we had expected to be a quaint seaside town with B&B's and friendly pubs turned out to be, well, not that at all.  It was instead a narcoleptic town that closed down at 5:00 and just happened to be hosting the Anglesey Agricultural Fair.  But we were determined that we were going to experience Wales, so we call a cab company and proceed to attempt to explain to our cabbie that we want any room/food that is available.

After four hours, and numerous unfruitful stops, we pull up to The Bull Hotel--and there are two rooms available!  Famished, exhausted, and a bit cranky that our passports didn't actually get stamped when we crossed into Wales, we were ready to sleep just about anywhere, even if we were 15 minutes too late for dinner.  "Is there any way the kitchen can scrounge something up for us?" we beg, hoping against hope that our poor grumbling stomachs aren't going to be denied.  "Well, tonight was Chinese food night.  Come to the dining room and we'll bring you some," is the unexpected reply.  We look quizzically at each other, but since our cabbie had already pealed out of the parking lot with our 4-hour fare, chuckling to himself about the crazy tourists, we head over to the dining room to see how the Welsh do Chinese.

Now I have never been to China.  Until recently I thought Safeway made pretty good Chinese food, but even I know that you don't see a lot of potatoes in Asia.   Maybe it was fusion, or maybe it was just confusion, but there on our plates were sweet and sour chicken, over rice, all over "chips."  Yep, french fries.  If I move to Canada and open an International Poutine stand, this is going to be the first thing on the menu. 

Fortunately, after a good night's sleep (and a shower involving more pulleys and levers than an 18th century sailing ship), the world again looks promising.  And it was good we were well rested because awaiting me that day was going to be one of the biggest challenges I have yet encountered: navigating for someone who is driving on the left side of the road.

I don't understand driving on the left side of the road.  Why wouldn't you drive on the right side?  But apparently on the British Isles left is right and right is wrong.  No wonder all of their colonial holdings have been able to break free.  But I digress. 

The hardest part about navigating in Wales is that all of  the names of places are so long, and the places themselves so small, that by the time you read the whole town's name you've already driven through it.  Case in point, the town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.  Imagine having to write that on every form you ever fill out!  In fact, the town governors figured residents were spending approximately 3 years of their life just writing their town's name, so they shortened it to Llanfair PG.  Parental guidance suggested.

When you plan your trip to Wales, learn from our mistakes, take my advice, and head straight to the town of Beaumaris.   That's the Wales you want to see.  Castle ruins, tea houses, locally made blankets, and all the charm you could ever want.  Just remember, no right turn on red.

And so it begins...

I'm sure it's blasphemous to say it.  I'm sure St. Patrick is going to march right over to his buddy Peter and demand I be denied entrance, but say it I must.  I hate Guinness.

As I much as I hate Guinness, I love to travel.  I'm eagerly awaiting teleportation technology so I can avoid the soul-sucking experience that is flying, but the thrill of exploring new places (especially really, really old places) makes me plaster a smile on my face for the lady at the check-in counter, wait patiently in line so the TSA can violate all of my rights, and murmur a polite hello to the guy sitting next to me who is, invariably, taking up more seat than he actually paid for.  Until I get these troublesome student loans paid down (who knew that a BA in History and a MA in Education pretty much pigeon-holes you as a high school history teacher??) I may not be getting to do quite as much international travel as I would like, but I'm finding that my home in the Pacific Northwest offers some eclectic experiences all on its own.  The past couple of years my work and family life have been pretty stressful, and this year I have decided that I'm not going to let things I can't control keep me from enjoying the things I can (my counselor would be so proud!).   So here I am, endeavoring to explore the world--or at the very least, my corner of it--two pints (for the hubby) and a cocktail (for me) at a time.

But back to my hatred of Guinness...

It's supposed to be better in Ireland, something about the gasses not traveling well, making it more bitter the less fresh it is, or something like that.  So in 2006 I found myself in Ireland, sitting in a pub that gets Guinness delivered fresh from the brewery every day, (by the way, the half of the city that is not taken up by the actual brewery is taken up by all the pubs that begin serving Guinness at 11am--except on Sundays), and I still think it tastes like bread-flavored motor oil.

Maybe you have to be Irish to understand the complexities and subtleties of such a drink.  Maybe you have to have the blood of those who fought oppression for thousands of years, while trying to hold an umbrella, running through your veins.  Matthew's last name is Benedict.  He gets it.  My last name is Valenzuela.  I'm more of an apple juice-colored drink with a lime wedge kind of girl.

Unfathomable beverages aside, Dublin is a pretty fantastic city (and fortunately, my now-discovered gluten intolerance will give me a great excuse for not drinking my lunch next time I'm in town).  Granted, I may be a bit biased since that's where Matthew and I met, but I did spend a few quite pleasant days there before a guy in a kilt inexplicably stole my heart.

The first thing that you notice about Dublin is that it's old.  If I could figure out how to double underline that word, I would.  Living in Seattle, where it's rare to find buildings that pre-date my grandparents, this is something I have a hard time grasping.  "This building was built when?  The 12th century?  That must be a typo, I'm pretty sure people only lived in caves in the 12th century."  But apparently Dubliners were a bit more advanced in the 12th century because the cathedrals you see certainly weren't built in the 70's.  (Actually, given the economic state of the British Isles in the 70's, Dubliners may have been living in caves then.)

So the city's old, the history nerd in me is as excited as a 13 year old girl at a Justin Bieber concert, and I find myself hand-in-hand with a guy in a skirt, walking through a jail.

When your first date's at a jail, things can only get better.

Unless, of course, that jail is Dublin's Kilmainham Gaol--now a museum--built in 1796, and the site of the executions of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising.  Then you have a date made in Cyra-heaven.