Da Vinci Code

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Just completed Da Vinci Code (quick read, especially as an eBook). Definitely not a book to read for its deep message or crafted writing, but still incredibly entertaining. Entertaining and page turning similar to the way "The Firm" was all those years ago. Written like any of the popular suspense/thrillers, from Clancy to Crichton. But well worth the few days it took to read.

The book has gotten a lot of people talking. Some Catholics feel the book portrays the church in a poor light. Having read the book with no catholic/christian affiliation at all, I don't really agree. (But this does bring one annoyance with the work to light.) I don't think most readers could look at the catholic characters in the book and believe they represented the actual church or church opinion. Without spoiling any plot lines, it's fair to say the reason why the church and its faithful are upset with the book is obvious and the reasoning behind the complaints I've been reading appears to be a pretty weak attempt at discrediting a great work of FICTION. Another group probably has more genuine reason to complain, Opus Dei is portrayed much more harshly then the catholic church. Again, as a fairly unbiased reader, I didn't really believe the things written about the Opus Dei faction in this book.

That said, the "annoying" (albeit, the reason many people are talking about this book) thing about this book is how hard it is for the reader to tell fact from fiction. As with many well written historical fictions, unless you are a historian, it is hard to tell when the author is using his artistic license or when he's laying down the facts. I even read a suggestion online that facts should be printed in a different color! (Wouldn't that be easy with digital paper?)

What's even more crazy (to me) is the lengths some people will go to counter 'the message' of this book. While searching for resources on Amazon.com, the website 'christianitytoday.com' even paid for the 'Da Vinci Code' keywords to bring up a link to their 'rebuttal' of the book. Curious, I searched on Google using similar keywords and got a similar result in the TextAds (with the same link)!

Want to know more? Well, there's an interview with the author, an upcoming movie, and a reader's guide. Some previous research on the theories brought to light in the book are available online too (with specific treatment of the book even). Also, apparently, the 'secret society' (Priory of Sion) that features in the book has existed, but with a sordid past and is most likely responsible for much 'false history'. For a less thrilling account of the various theories, it appears Holy Blood, Holy Grail is a must read.

Posted by ben at 07:30 PM
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Return to Reality

Well, we've pretty much recovered from the massive time shift. Starting to look around at the rubble that is our lives at the moment. You know all the junk you collect while traveling? Receipts. Dirty laundry. Gifts. Luggage. House needs cleaning. Bills need to be paid. The list goes on and on.

On our return home, we found out about some, um, stuff that happened while we were away. Our pet sitter (one of Tedd's friends from the neighborhood), early in the visit got locked out of the house.

She panicked and asked our neighbors for help. In the process of pulling a ladder down in the garage they *nailed* my car on the trunk lid w/ the metal ladder. About an 18" gash down to the bare metal.

*Sigh* I was too angry to speak, and I've only looked in the dark. For all I know they nailed my car elsewhere or even better Hol's new car. Once they got the ladder down, they climbed to the second story to see if they could get in a window. Of course all the windows were firmly locked, but they tried anyway -- now we have a nice 4" gash in our guest room screen.

*Sigh* Excellent. Keep in mind our windows and screens are nearly 2 months old! We needed new ones anyway, I guess. Finally the pet sitter figured out she could read our number in the UK through the kitchen window. She called us. We told her where the spare key was in the garage (probably should have mentioned it before, lesson learned -- the hard way). The key is in one of those "tricky" fake soda pop cans. The neighbor couldn't figure out how to pop the top off, so he just ripped it in half.

*Sigh* How could I even be upset at this point?

Of course they were only trying to help, right? What can I say? Nothing, I'll just keep my mouth shut (except here).

Update: OK, now a different neighbor has reported to Holly that the ladder fell when the neighbor tripped, and tripped so bad that he bled and ended up visiting the hospital. Gah.

Posted by ben at 10:00 PM
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Final Day

(2004/01/05 - Monday)

We spent our last day preparing for the trip home. It has been quite a trip. One that all of us have enjoyed. Based on our travels this year we are already discussing a trip back in the summer of 2005. It would be nice to see England when the weather is a bit nicer. We are also discussing trips to France and Spain.

We wrote postcards, did some last minute gift shopping during the day. None of us really want to go home just yet, but it will be nice to get back. I'm sure the B's will miss us, but they no doubt want their house back too! We'll miss them while they are here in the UK for the next couple of years.

One last curry take away for dinner, plus a stop at the pub with J. J suggested we go down to town to order the take away. When I suggested we call ahead, order and then just go down and pick it up, he looked incredulous. "If we do that, we won't be able to stop at a pub I know while the food is getting prepared?" Right. I like the way this guy thinks. I miss him already.

Posted by ben at 10:00 PM
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Bath

(2004/01/04 - Sunday)

We drove out to Bath today. The motorway takes you along a ridgeline overlooking the city in the valley below. From the road you could see a quite packed little city, full of classic architecture. The surrounding hills were quite green. There was quite a bit of traffic as we entered the town and finally J navigated us to a parking lot just below the Royal Crescent. We broke out the new stroller and "buggy board" (I'd never seen these before in the states, but it worked great for pushing the baby and 3 year old around quickly -- everyone seemed to have them here) for the walk down to the main attraction, the Roman Baths.

The Roman Baths are an archeological find excavated from under the surface of the modern day Bath. According to the museum, the original site is 6 meters below the current streets and was found during some sewer work. They've excavated a great deal of the original site, finding many bits of Roman history in the process. For a site built nearly 2000 years ago, it was amazing to the see the simple filtration and drainage system originally implemented by the Romans, still in working order. There was even an original lead pipe that originally fed a fountain in the floor of the main bath. The Romans and people that made pilgrimages here up to 400 AD believed that not only sitting in the naturally hot pools, but drinking it would cure various health problems. Visitors can still purchase a cup of (treated) bath water for 50p. (ugh!)

After visiting the Baths, we stopped in front of the Bath Abbey for a few quick pictures before lunch. We walked past the Abbey, down to the Avon. We ate at Caffe Uno on the river front just next to the Pultney Bridge. C was very tired and having a bad day. Poor E nearly lost it with her. She was definitely acting like a brat and testing her parents. I think she's probably a little shocked by the move to England and change in surroundings. Her parents seem to be attempting to put her back into a consistent routine to get her back on track. I definitely feel for their situation with her, she’s currently a handful. When E asked for any advice, I just tried to emphasis that they should feel free to discipline her however/whenever they need to and not feel like they can't do that because we are around. I don't mind waiting or stopping to get C under control.

After our late afternoon meal, we walked up the hill to The Circus and Royal Crescent (also, a postcard we picked up). These are two amazing streets in Bath. Unfortunately, it was a bit too dark for my camera by the time we got there -- I bought a few postcards instead. I looked at housing in Bath, in case anyone wanted to move there. A 2 bedroom/2 bath flat on The Circus is going to cost you £355,000. Cheaper than London! (S's 3 bedroom/2 bath flat in Chiswick London was in the £750,000 range.) I'll leave the conversion to USD as an exercise for the reader. (Ouch!)

Photo Album: http://mehling.org/gallery/v/Travel/UK_2003-04/UK_Day12/

Posted by ben at 10:00 PM
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Stonehenge

(2004/01/03 - Saturday)

Unfortunately we were unable to secure tickets to Alls Well That Ends Well at the Swan in Stratford-upon-Avon. I'll probably kick myself for this particularly poorly planned aspect of the trip. I really wanted to see the show, but couldn't make it work. I guess we'll have to come back. *grin* Once we were pretty certain no rush tickets would become available, we drove out to Stonehenge.

The drive south from Swindon gave us more chances to take in the English countryside. Although most of the leaves were off the trees, everything was green.

Stonehenge, I suppose, is a bunch of big rocks sitting in the chilly south of England. What amazed me the most was the sheer amount of man power required to move the rocks (some are from Wales, over 100 miles away!), the precision required to shape the stones to fit together properly, and the knowledge of astronomy to properly place the stones, all of it occurring over 5000 years ago. Pretty neat stuff. This was an easy day trip from Swindon and we were home in time for the FA cup match that evening...

Watched an FA cup match w/ J (Southampton v. New Castle: 0-3). Also watched some timely UK history programs about some of the kings we'd learned about just a few days earlier in London.

Photo Album: http://mehling.org/gallery/v/Travel/UK_2003-04/UK_Day11/

Posted by ben at 10:00 PM
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Down Day

(2004/01/02 - Friday)

Down time day. Everyone needed it after 3 solid days in London.

Did some shopping for gifts in Swindon. Noticed a nice E36 Alpina B3.2 parked in town. J stayed home with the kids. We got lots of tourist-y gifts. The B's want tomorrow off, so I think we will head to Stonehenge for the day. Only 4 days left! Feels like I'd need about 3-6 months to be satisfied, that and a much larger bank account (or credit line).

We took E and J out to dinner to thank them for their hospitality. We started at a pub for a couple drinks, then headed over to the Curry Garden. A long three course meal followed... popadoms, samosa, and chicken tikka. The lime hot pickle with onion salad were nice and spicy. Entrees were lamb tikka rogen josh, chicken bhuna, chicken madras, and spicy bombay potatoes. Pilau rice and garlic nan. Dessert was pinapple fritters (hot), a honey pot, a hazelnut crunch, and a chocolate dish. Dinner was delicious. I'm hungry just thinking about it. Conversation turned to parenting. J & E appear to have the same grumbles with M that we had just a few years ago...

After dinner we walked over to another pub, the beehive, for a night cap. J did a wonderful rendition of a sperm using a crutch whilst telling his 'wanker' joke.

Posted by ben at 10:00 PM
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London, Day 3

(2004/01/01 - Thursday)

The B's were pretty tired today. Hol suggested they try the New Years Day Parade and then hit either the Natural History or Science Museums.

We took the tube to Piccadilly Circus, and caught the Soho walking tour of "Courtesans, Criminals, and Conmen". This was a pretty cool walk through Soho. The guide discussed some the various 'dens of iniquity' here over the past 2 centuries, the gangsters, and other local happenings as we walked the streets. We didn't get our schedule right so that we could do the famous -- Jack the Ripper" walk. Next time. *grin*

With the walk over we grabbed a bite in Soho, and then caught the tube at Leicester Square back to Westminster. A short walk up King Charles St. and we entered a small door facing Saint James's Park. This is the Cabinet War Rooms museum. A time capsule of the nerve center Winston Churchill used during World War II. The rooms were top secret during the war, and for years after remained as they were the day the war ended, sealed and unused. The rooms act as both a museum of the war time efforts that took place here and as a Winston Churchill museum (the Imperial War Museum group plans to add to the War Rooms a Churchill dedicated section).

This museum will work for mature teenagers, but kids will be bored silly. One really fun aspect was the few period actors working as docents in the rooms. The young lady, acting as one of the 'typist girls', was very good. Part of their role was to walk from room to room, in character, making conversation with the tourists. This was all improv, and while she obviously had a number of stock bits, I was quite impressed with her back story. At one point, a tourist made a comment about how nice her dress was (a period costume obviously). She had an entire story about it being second hand passed on from her older sister who couldn't fit into it any longer because she'd had two kids. At another point she chatted about the current popular music and movies of that period. Very fun.

On the way back to Chiswick, we stopped off at the Victor and Albert Museum to see the Zoomorphic architectural exhibit going on through the 4th. My favorite display was the original model of Saint Mary's Axe which now graces the London sky line and we'd seen earlier, both from the London Eye and across the Thames from Tower of London.

We headed home to Swindon and J put the hammer down on the M4. We were home in a little more than an hour. A nice E39 Alpina B10 passed us on the way.

Chinese take away and plenty of beers for a late dinner. We sat up late discussing life, parenting, travel, and plans. It was certainly nice to sit with our friends and just talk. The kids were in bed and they could both relax, together... Something that seems to come infrequently in a house with 3 kids (2 under 3 years old).

Photo Album: http://mehling.org/gallery/v/Travel/UK_2003-04/UK_Day09/

Posted by ben at 10:00 PM
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