Conservatives are still trying to distance themselves from the Bush era, trying to claim that it wasn’t really conservatism, that Bush & Co. strayed from true conservative policy, and therefore conservatism isn’t stained by Bush as much as people make it out to be.

The thing is, you can blame Bush and reject him as much as you want, but you cannot avoid a simple fact: conservatives voted for Bush and relentlessly supported and defended his policies over the eight years of his administration. Some disagreed on isolated issues, some fully rebelled over time, but most stayed the course–and most voted for John McCain, who ideologically ran on the ‘Bush 2.0’ ticket despite all his claims about change.

You can’t continuously support someone and try to extend his legacy, and then months later try to claim that he violated most of your principles and wasn’t really your guy.

One thing you probably don’t usually notice is missing from hotel bathrooms: a scale. When traveling, you tend to eat out as you have no kitchen to cook in, and restaurant food is usually not too healthy. In London, I had lots of fish & chips, in Madrid it was tons of chorizo (often with cheese), in Greece is was Souvlaki, in Rome it was pizza and gelato. While Sachi often reined me in, I ate a heck of a lot more bad stuff than usual over the span of three weeks. Hey, it was our honeymoon!

I got on the scales just now: I gained only one kilo.

Must have been all the walking. One day in Rome, for example, we walked about 10 km, probably more with backtracking and roaming around inside places like the Roman Forum. We walked most days for considerable distances, relatively speaking. It must have been a lot; I recall my feet getting really tired after a day of walking in London and after going through the Prado in Madrid, but was surprised how well we still felt after going through the Vatican Museum.

Nevertheless, I am sticking to my pledge of more exercise and dieting upon return.

Wow. I take an international flight and when I come back, Arlen Specter’s a Democrat.

I knew it might happen, but did not expect it to happen so soon. The Dems may now have their super-majority, some 21 months ahead of schedule. When Norm Coleman and/or Tim Pawlenty stop being asses and let Minnesotans have the senator they voted for, the Democrats will have the magic 60. Already, Democrats may now have enough to stop a filibuster, if they can get everybody on their caucus to vote for cloture on their bills.

One has to wonder why he did it now. Was he bargaining with the Dems for a powerful position and only now the deal came through? Was he negotiating with the GOP and they got far too tough with him? Or maybe both of those?

A big part of this, however, seems less about the GOP making threats to get Specter to toe the line and more about Specter realizing that he’s on a sinking ship. A new poll finds that while Democratic Party identification remains strong at 35%, only 21% of voters self-identify as Republicans, a low point for the party. “Independent” Americans now number 38%. Specter himself noted that 200,000 Republican Pennsylvanians had switched from Republicans to Democrats in the past year, a remark which has many saying that Specter is being quite open about this being more about winning an election and less about values and principles.

But Specter more clearly stated that it was about the GOP leaving moderates behind; it was about the party shifting too far to the right, making the Democrats more palatable to moderates. Whatever the strategic reasons Specter had, his point about the party leaving him behind is valid–in fact, that’s exactly why he no longer was a viable Republican candidate. Is it principled to hang on to a party which is increasingly alienating you and will likely vote you out of office in the primaries?

What has been said about the Republican Death Spiral seems to be coming true. The GOP’s solution is not to go big-tent, but to close the tent even tighter around the extremists–thus making more and more moderates leave the party, which makes the party more extremist still, which forces out more moderates. Remembering back to the 90’s, conservatives tried to make “liberal” a dirty word; today, they are trying to do the same with the “Democrat” Party. And while they have had some success, they have inadvertently made their own party’s name far more unpalatable simply by acting like enormous jerks.

The question is, is the GOP actually dying? How far does the party have to sink before it stops being viable? It might not be so bad for the GOP, because despite people not wanting to call themselves “Republican,” given only two choices, they may very well, more often than not, choose the Republican candidate. Hobson’s choice and all that. Look at McCain, how much of the vote that he got despite party identification being almost half of the percentage of actual votes he got. True, a lot of those votes were won with plain old smear tactics and the fact that there was a grizzled veteran war hero running against an inexperienced black guy. But I believe that a lot of people who voted for McCain were IINO–Independents In Name Only, Independents who used to be Republicans and simply could not bring themselves to vote for a Democrat. They may not identify as Republicans any more, but they still vote that way.

What I am waiting for is for someone to realize that there are probably now more conservatives out of the GOP than in it, and to fill that power vacuum occupying moderate Republicans and centrists. Right now there is no one because everyone still sees the GOP as monolithic, and another party leaning to the right might split the vote and get a Democrat elected. But if an “Independent Party” (better yet, an “Independence Party”) could address the voters from left-of-extremist Republicans to moderate Democrats, they might get enough of a vote that they could supplant the former Republican Party and marginalize them. In fact, such a move might be the only way that segment of the political spectrum can become credible again.

In a way, I hope they don’t–I hope the GOP continues to spiral into irrelevancy and disorder, putting more and more radical and laughable candidates up for the Democrats to shoot down. But if they do form a new party, maybe within say 2 or 3 election cycles they could become tenable enough to gain more Congressional seats than the GOP. They might even have a chance to win the presidency. I would not feel quite as bad about that relative to a present-day Republican taking office. Imagine John McCain as he was in 2000 winning. He was still conservative, but you at least felt that he would speak more truth and work across the aisle, instead of being just another GOP sock puppet, like he was this time around.

Of course, the formation of a new party might be hindered by the GOP, which, while dying, still would be a monolithic force with a massive support base, a force to be reckoned with. They will feel entitled to be the voice of the right wing, and those still inhabiting the party will not give up power so easily.

There are some who are still trying to bring the old party around. Interestingly, Olympia Snowe–one of three moderate Republicans, who, along with Specter, has come under fire from an increasingly hard-core and frightened GOP–wrote an editorial which urged the party to learn from this like they should have learned from the Jeffords defection. In short, stop moving even further to the right, and return to more moderate, Reaganesque big-tent roots that gained the party the power it squandered under Bush. The real question, however, is what Snowe is trying to say to her party. Is she hinting at and laying the groundwork for the potential that she too may defect if the GOP continues to radicalize itself and marginalize her? Or did she write the op-ed in the voice of a Reagan-era Republican in an attempt to immunize herself from the GOP panicking, lest they try to apply the thumbscrews to her even harder? Either way, one has to wonder if she really believes that the GOP is in fact capable at this point of moving back to the center; it is becoming increasingly difficult to see them doing so.

As a side note, here’s a thought: Obama may be garnering his Obama Republicans, just not the same way Reagan got his Democrats. Instead of working with the other party, pols who might otherwise have been Republicans are now joining the Democratic Party. As the GOP has shrunk to its core, the Democratic Party has expanded to include the middle (with Republicans at least claiming that they happily cede the traitorous wretches). The Democrats have Lieberman, Jeffords, and Specter now, along with a passel of “Blue Dog” Democrats. With a super-majority, Obama will be busy enough dealing with them. The GOP made it explicitly clear to Obama: “Our prime mission is to oppose you as a united front and try our best to make you fail.” No amount of bipartisanship can penetrate that; as the old saying goes, it takes two to Tango. The GOP has refused Obama’s invitation. But Obama can instead gain bipartisanship within his own party, in that there exist within it conservative Democrats who will hold Obama to a more centrist course.

Ironically, the Democrats have been criticized for taking in “anyone who looked capable of winning an election, beliefs be hanged.” First, the Republicans are the ones who abandoned their beliefs to gain power; that’s one of the main reasons they are in this fix now. Second, the Dems are not surrendering their beliefs, they are taking on the Reagan “big tent” strategy–including people in the center and dealing with them, as opposed to shutting them out. Again, another major reason Dems are gaining so much more. I have the feeling that if Republicans did this, nobody but the extremists would be accusing them of ditching their beliefs. Reagan was lauded for this; Obama is being criticized.

Of course, a lot of Democrats don’t appreciate being dragged more to the center, and protest when compromises are made to satisfy the more conservative elements of the party. But at least those compromises are being made in fact due to principles or at least voter pressure, and not because of political gamesmanship. Which means that the in-party wrangling going on is, ironically, the true bipartisanship.

This opinion is given on what we should do about torture:

“The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment.”

Is it too easy to guess who said this?

In case it’s not, the answer is below the fold. Read more…

When Democrats put forward the stimulus bill, it included some stuff that was more good ideas than pure job-creation. Republicans objected to many of these but two programs stand out now. One was volcano monitoring, which Bobby Jindal dismissed as unnecessary, saying that “Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington.” Geologists disagreed. One month later, Alaska’s Mount Redoubt erupted with five massive explosions, threatening people nearby, putting not too fine a point on how such monitoring can save lives, and in an extreme case, help avoid having to spend far more money in the long run.

At the same time, Republicans were attacking Democrats for including nearly a billion dollars for pandemic flu preparedness in the spending bill. Republican Senator Susan Collins from Maine argued that the funding should be cut, and was successful in doing so. Now, two and a half months later, a swine flu epidemic seems to be on the verge of outbreak, with the possibility of turning into a pandemic–something that could cost the country trillions of dollars. Unless we’re prepared. Oops.

True, neither were particularly great for job creation–but they would have created jobs, and would also be highly practical, with great benefits for the country.

Republican politicians seem to be rather famously short-sighted on stuff like this, thinking about the immediate bottom line rather than long-term complications and potential hazards. In the meantime, when a Democrat is far-sighted, he gets pilloried. Just look at Al Gore. He was very strongly involved in the 1980’s to not only keep the then-embryonic Internet funded when it was going to be discarded by the Reagan Administration, but worked to build and expand it. Later, it became a multi-trillion-dollar boon to the nation’s economy. The Republican reaction: to falsely ridicule him by saying that he claimed to have single-handedly invented the Internet. Well, guffaw.

Right-wingers have consistently held that Bush’s war on terror was a ‘success’ based on the sole fact that, aside from 9/11 and the ensuing anthrax attacks, there were no major foreign terrorist attacks within the United States. Bush “kept us safe” for seven years.

Aside from the rather salient point that Clinton had at least as good a record (after the WTC bombing in ’93, there were no major foreign terrorist attacks within the United States until the end of his term also), one has to note that Bush faced no major threats to thwart. (Clinton faced the Millennium threat, and it was thwarted; conservatives go to great lengths to deny Clinton credit for that, despite giving Bush more credit for doing less.)

The lack of an attempt obviously means that al Qaeda didn’t try to attack us at home.

Doesn’t that come across as strange? Certainly they didn’t hold off because our borders are so secure, or Bush’s anti-terror methods were so air-tight; they weren’t. They didn’t hold off because they were so busy killing our troops in Iraq; Bush’s war increased their recruited base so much they could easily have spared the manpower.

Has anyone considered the idea that al Qaeda didn’t attack us because Bush was doing exactly what they wanted him to do? And they didn’t want to interfere with that?

A Release Candidate of Windows 7 is out there now, and one ‘feature‘ being touted is the wallpapers provided with the system. A few samples (more here):

Maybe I’m just not hip enough, but does it strike anyone else that possibly psychedelic drugs were involved in making some of these? Or do most people nowadays consider such images not bizarre? I have noted similarly strange artwork available as Zune etchings, but these seem to go even further. They don’t even make much sense as wallpapers, as they would probably make your Desktop icons difficult to see.

When I see this stuff mentioned on web sites, it is often referred to as “cool” or awesome.“

Really, I’m serious here. Am I just a completely non-trendy, out-of-tune grampaw or something?

The Franken seating has been set back again as Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty has apparently decided not to end the Coleman farce and Coleman’s attorneys have appealed to the Minnesota State Supreme Court, and those proceedings will hold up Franken’s seating until at least June.

Question: The Constitution reading:

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

Does that mean that if Franken is seated in June (presuming Coleman does not push it even further), that Franken will serve six years from his seating? It would mean that from now on, Minnesota’s alternate Senate election would always be eight or so months behind all other elections. Because that’s how I read the Constitution. Maybe I’m wrong. Am I?

Fox News poll question:

Regardless of whether or not you think harsh interrogation techniques work, do you think the CIA should be allowed to use these techniques to obtain information from prisoners that might protect the United States from terrorist attacks?

Okay, let’s parse that:

A. Regardless of whether or not you think harsh interrogation techniques work

B. techniques to obtain information from prisoners that might protect the United States from terrorist attacks

So, whether or not they work, should techniques that might work be employed?

The Fox Noise laddies have worked overtime in the critical thinking department, it seems.

Afterthought: they did not include as a possible answer, “This is a stupid question.”

A lot of people are heaping blame on the Democrats and Obama in particular for not actively prosecuting all those involved in the torture fiasco. And while I wholly agree that all should be hunted down, tried, and jailed if found guilty, I also realize one important fact: it is not the Democrats that are failing on this, it is the Republicans. The Dems are not holding back because they approve of what happened, or because they were involved or failed to prevent it, or because they want to hold back for any reason; they are holding back because they are perfectly aware that if they were to prosecute to the letter of the law, Republicans would unleash all holy hell as yet not even imagined, claiming political persecution and retribution, and going to level-ten all-out internecine warfare that will make their present ultra-paranoid harpings look like an Osmond family reunion on valium in comparison.

Even the name is sweet. But frankly speaking, I have often reflected on the fact that these are little more than regular–and fair-sized–bugs that simply happen to have beautiful wings. If this particular bug suddenly lost its wings, this lady would most probably freak out at the ginormous insect sitting smack on her nose.

Here’s a story that makes me feel like a genius to put our iPhones on Airplane mode (Wi-Fi re-activated afterward) while traveling: a man was visiting Mexico from the U.S. and his nephew wanted to watch “Wall•E,” so he put in his data card for his wireless carrier and downloaded the movie. When he got back to the U.S., his carrier billed him for $62,000. When he contested the charge, the carrier cut it by more than 70%, but it was still $17,000–the claim being that was what it cost the carrier.

The core question is, why is global roaming so expensive? When I checked out prices for Sachi and I to use our iPhones in America, it came to $2 a minute–even when we just received calls. Carriers usually claim that the costs are the foreign carriers’ fault, but these carriers charge just as much themselves. They will say that the charges are necessary for “capturing the information and rebilling across multiple countries, combined with exchange rate considerations,” but the $62,000 charge belies that. First, the $17,000 reduction shows that the home carrier adds about 70% on top of what the foreign carrier charges, and second, I seriously doubt that a single data transaction like downloading a movie costs $17,000 to track the exchange and rebill, not to mention that exchange rates would have a miniscule effect relative to the whole transaction. Rebilling happens all the time in many industries and should not cost that much, and the data tracking should not be so expensive either.

In short, carriers simply see an opportunity to bilk people and all carriers cooperate to do so in cartel fashion. The EU is working on legislation to prevent this, and frankly, all countries should be doing so.

Sachi and I woke up at a reasonable hour to leave Spain. Unlike other flights, this one left at a civilized hour, about 1:00 in the afternoon. That meant that, with a -hour time difference with Greece, we arrive in Athens after 5:00. Our arrival here was met with all kinds of minor unfortunate twists. First, the train line we’d planned to take into town was closed, for several months. Fortunately, there was an alternate line which served just as well–a nice train, in fact, very smooth and quiet. From a transfer station, we changed to the Green Line, where we experienced rather heavy sensuality among the car’s occupants–at least three couples were engaged in some rather heavy oral massages.

We also experienced an introduction to the less attractive social graces of Greece. At the transfer point, I was heavily laden and right at the door to get out. When the door opened, people flooded out, a few pushing past me. I let them go, but tried to get out after them–but the line of people behind them just flowed past. No courtesy go-ahead. I was without doubt “ahead” in line, and indicated clearly that I was moving forward, but they didn’t let me through, until I just shoved my way in. On the Green Line train a few minutes later, Sachi and I found two seats open together and Sachi stood over them while I set up our suitcases in a stable manner. Despite there being a single conspicuously open seat very close by, a man muscled his way past Sachi and sat in one of the two open seats she was clearly hovering over. We sat apart.

This is not to say that Greeks are impolite. When I have asked for directions, they have answered graciously and with a smile. A ticket-taker at the Ancient Agora was not only helpful with information, but joked and was very congenial. Shopkeepers have been very helpful in volunteering directions and suggesting other businesses we could visit to suit our needs. But there is the other end of the spectrum, like the metro ticket seller who grunted when we paid and virtually threw our tickets down. And then there’s the street urination, which leads to the rather unpleasant smell gracing so many of the smaller avenues in downtown Athens.

Another thing which bothered me, which happened a few days after we arrived: a cashier tried to cheat me, no less irritating that it was for a paltry sum. There was a pastry shop (“Apollonian”) we found the first evening which had a great assortment of tasty looking treats. The other morning, I went there to get some morning pastries, and when I checked out, the total came to €7.57. I had a €5 bill, and some €1 coins, but I wanted to give exact change. However, I didn’t have a 50 cent piece or the equivalent in smaller change, so I put three €1 coins, a 5-cent and two 1-cent coins along with the fiver to make €8.07. The cashier took it, put all the money in her drawer first, and then handed me back a 20-cent coin. I objected, and she took the 20-cent coin back–and gave me a ten cent coin. I objected again, making a five-fingered gesture to denote the bill I gave her, three fingers while saying “Euro” again, then seven fingers with the word “cent.” The woman said something back which obviously disagreed, and when I objected again, she called for an English-speaking staff member to translate. I told her what happened, and she translated–then reported back that the cashier claimed I had only paid seven Euros. Clearly a lie: she would not have given me change at all if that were the case, and the 20 and then 10-Euro change also indicated that she was full of it. The woman clearly had tagged me as a non-European tourist and figured she could make a few dimes off me and I wouldn’t know the difference–rather contemptuous when you think about it. The thing is, one skill I’m good at is calculating change–I made no error there. What’s strange is that the woman did it for such a small amount. The staff member she called apologized quickly, but it was clear she wouldn’t help (I can only assume that the cashier, an older woman with a better position, was her senior in the workplace). Also, there were many people waiting in line behind me. I gave the cashier back the ten cents in a show of contempt myself and left. The money mattered not at all–it was the utter disrespect showed that galled me.

Essentially, the Greeks seem to have a wider spectrum of civility than most other cultures I’ve encountered–many people on the gentle, kind and generous end, and many on the other end. A snap analysis that may be in error, but that’s what it seems. Sachi has compared it with Shanghai, and I have to agree that it’s close in many ways–crumbling pavements lined with sellers of fake goods, pushy people often shouting and making a fuss, obnoxious traffic and more. People commonly jaywalk (Sachi calls it “Shanghai Walking”). It is certainly closer to Shanghai than anywhere else I’ve been.

In any case, back to the narrative. Sachi and I got in to the station where our hotel was, and soon became more depressed about our choice of venues. We were tired and it was late, and being the Monday after Easter Sunday, almost everything was closed. We walked from Omonia Station, but the sidewalks were not made for suitcases. The small tiles of the sidewalk wreaked havoc with poor Sachi’s suitcase wheels. And although we have since gotten the feeling that it is relatively safe, it very much had the feel of the “wrong part of town.”

After checking in, we asked the hotel receptionist and he told us that there was probably nothing open, but we ventured out anyway. It turned out that a small kiosk right outside the hotel sold drinks and snacks, even beer, for a lot less than the hotel did. We stocked up from there, put it in our room, and then ventured out farther, finding a few shops open, including the pastry shop mentioned above.

However, our opinions of the area dropped even more after our short walk out. We got more than an eyeful of some dank and dark streets, and witnessed all too closely why the streets have that special urine smell. Going back to our hotel room, we concluded that the hotel was very nice indoors, but the environment outdoors was far less attractive. At the time, we were pessimistic about Greece being a very good honeymoon stop. That opinion would change soon, but it did put a damper on our first night in.

As noted previously, our ninth day was spent resting, getting ready for our final day in Spain and our next hop to Athens.

Our last full day in Spain we spent in two parts: first, we went to the Sunday Market at Cava Baja, south of Plaza Mayor, and then for dinner and later we went to Aunt Berta’s for her famous Paella.

The trip to Mayor and the market was straightforward. Every Sunday, there is a huge market in the old part of town. You go to Opera Station, the one close to the Opera House in front of the palace. You can walk down a shopping street with just a fair amount of activity, and eventually take a right turn to Plaza Mayor. From Mayor, you exit the south gate and walk for a few blocks, and you’ll find the northernmost end of the market. From there, it stretches for a long ways to the south, on and on and on, with side streets branching out shortly here and there. There is no food, just items for sale, mostly clothing. It’s quite a sight to see, all of that activity, all of those people.

After we got through it all, we headed back up to Mayor and continued my chorizo shopping, and stopped at a cafe for a drink and a snack. At first it was just for a drink, but we felt a bit hungry and asked if they had any chicken fingers or fried chicken. The waited said no to the fingers, but claimed they had chicken. What he brought us was a plated of chicken full of bones in a strange curry-like sauce–not at all what we wanted, and they charged us €15 for it (we should have asked more). But it was nice to sit and relax in the plaza, in any case.

There were some sparrows hopping around underneath, and though perhaps we should not have, we fed them some bread.

Some people were in costume around the square, including this guy in a Spiderman outfit. I think it’s Jack Black.

At a shop in the square where I picked up some chorizo, I noticed this game–something that most restaurants in Spain seem to have, but just one. I have no idea what it is or does, nor was I interested, beyond the fact that they seem ubiquitous.

Eventually, we made it back to Opera Station and to the hotel, where we rested for a while before dinner.

My father, who is also in Spain, picked Sachi and I up before six o’clock and took us to Aunt Berta’s apartment, where she had been working most of the day to cook a paella. I feel bad, because I mentioned it casually and was not aware of the heavy work involved, but since I did mention it, Bert probably felt obliged to deliver. And deliver she did. Her paella is the stuff of minor legends, and she is called on to cook it at parties and get-togethers now and then. She certainly did not disappoint for us.

After the wonderful dinner, Vicente happily obliged us also, providing some more music that I will hopefully use as a soundtrack for a video I’ll be making of our trip, mostly from photographs but with what video I took stitched in. We’ll see when I can get around to that and what form it will take.

We also got to see some of Berta’s photos, including her wedding photos.

Then there was the famous (in my family) drawing of my grandmother, a beautiful woman in her day:

After we said our goodbyes, my dad drove us back and we spent the last few hours of the night packing and getting ready for the trip to Greece the next day.

This is the day we decided to go on the open-top bus tour. In retrospect, we should have waited until the last day, but we had no way of knowing what the weather would turn out like.

I should pause here to describe the weather for our trip, as it has been a bit funny. Before we arrived in each of the three cities so far–London, Madrid, and Athens–weather forecasts were all the same: sunny and warm projected before we arrived and after we left, but for the exact times we planned to stay, rainy and col. It was as if the cold and rain were projected to follow us around precisely where we went, vanishing when we were not there. The funny thing is, the rainy weather, for the most part, failed to materialize. In London, a few days had spotty light rain–enough that you spent much of the time wondering if you should use your umbrella or not, and if you did, you usually put it away just a few minutes later. But other than that, every day the forecast would predict showers, and every day the weather would be anything from overcast to sunny (Although temperatures in London and Madrid were chilly). As I said, this happened all throughout London and Madrid and our first full day in Athens. Today, our second full day in Athens, they predicted sunshine–so naturally, it’s overcast. At least here in Athens, it’s nice and warm.

Back to Madrid and the eighth day. We had our usual lazy sleep-in, and before noon walked a fair distance to where these bus tours could pick us up. These buses are ones you will see all over the place in Madrid. I saw them so often, in fact, that I quickly got the impression that they came every 5 minutes or so. So when we got to the stop and saw a bus just leaving, the top looked a little crowded, so we didn’t race to get on it. Big mistake.

Forty minutes later, I was fed up and called the bus service. The pamphlet said to wait 10-20 minutes, and we had waited quite a bit longer than that. The result was predictable, and this always happens like magic: you call up to complain, and the bus arrives just as the operator picks up. Of course, since this bus was so late, the bus was jam packed. Sachi and I could not even sit together. My seat had a defective headphone plug, so no commentary, and the guy sitting in front of me was the tallest on the bus, natch. Since the seat was in the back row, the higher rails also blocked my view in all other directions. So much for a pleasant start.

The tour has two routes: Historical/cultural, and Monuments. We went on the historical and cultural first. Eventually, things looked up. As the bus made stops, people would get off and on. Sachi was disinclined to move up as spots became available, but we did at least get a nicer row with functioning headphone jacks. This was nice for a while, until a woman and her daughter got on the bus and sat right in front of us. Again, the worst-luck principle applied: the daughter constantly stood up to take photos (no one else on the bus did), which again blocked my view of most things I wanted to photograph. Eventually, I got fed up and migrated to near the front of the bus. Sachi stayed behind.

Poor Sachi: I was OK with the temperatures, but she was freezing cold. She said that she wanted to move downstairs and I encouraged her, but it turned out that no seats were available. So she braved it out on top. Eventually, we got to Plaza Mayor, and got off the bus for lunch and shopping.

We found a little restaurant which had what we both wanted: seats inside, out of the cold (most seats are outside on the plaza), and not a lot of cigarette smoke (Europeans seem predisposed to smoke, a lot–even Japan is better). Sachi ordered paella, and I got a plate of fried chorizo.

Another aside: I love chorizo. My mother got ahold of some of the authentic stuff when I was a kid and included it in a Spanish stew she made for my father. Since then, I can’t get enough of the stuff. In Japan, they have something called “chorizo,” but it bears absolutely no resemblance to the real thing. The real thing is thick (at least one inch across), dark red with the smoky-hot pimenton spice, and tastes, well, like chorizo. The Japanese stuff is just another bland Japanese sausage, sometimes slightly more spicy than other sausages. (Upon leaving Spain, I bought 9 or 10 chorizo in three different types–hopefully, no customs agents will spoil my trip by confiscating them.) I tended to order chorizo at every opportunity, as I did in Plaza Mayor–and their chorizo was fantastic. (We wound up going back there a few days later for a second helping.)

After Plaza Mayor, we got back on the same line we were on, and then transfered to the Monument Line at the Prado. When we started on that line, the weather had become sunny and warmish, but along the route, the weather turned sour and cold again, and it started to rain. We got off the bus soon after that, walked to Colon Station, and took the line back to Goya and then walked back to the hotel.

One thing I did get a good look at: architecture. You see a lot of buildings with a lot of different styles.

That just about wiped us out. In fact, Sachi was feeling poorly enough that we stayed indoors the whole next day–something which made sense anyway. After all, the honeymoon was about us having a good and comfortable time, not running ourselves weary being tourists.

There was a lot happening on this day, but not much to put into photos.

In the morning, Sachi and I visited my Aunt Mille, who lives in a residence for the elderly in the countryside south of Madrid. It’s a lovely area, and I wish that I could have had time for birdwatching–there was ample bird life around the place. But we had only sparse time for visiting, and Millie insisted that we go into town to the shopping mall and having lunch at a Chinese buffet. We did, but that left us only a short amount of time to actually chat, much less time than we would have preferred.

After lunch, my father drove us to Alcorcon Station, where we took the train back to Plaza de Espana. Sachi and I took a few minutes to check out the plaza before heading on.

The next stop: the Prado Museum.

The problem from a blogging perspective: I don’t know enough about art to comment intelligently on it, and they don’t allow photos anymore. The latter is strange: I remember quite clearly six years ago when we visited, photos were allowed (not flash, of course). I wonder what changed? Not enough people buying reproductions in the gift shop? So, just a few photos from that time years back, from a few of the exhibits I remember being there both times.

After we got through with the tour, we wandered the streets a little before heading back to the hotel. Something Sachi and I both enjoy is finding some interesting back streets to explore.

Sach and I are not extremely tough, hardened travelers; put us through airports, planes, and trains for a day and we’re beat. So there’s not much to report from day four of our honeymoon. Day 5, however, we got around, at least some. We checked out the neighborhood, including a department store called El Corte Ingles, which is all over Madrid. Interestingly, it follows the exact pattern of Japanese department stores: food sold in the basement, restaurants on the top floor, and mostly clothing on the floors in between. We went to the restaurant on the top floor and had lunch–and it was very good. I said it before, I’ll say it again–the Spanish know food.

One thing I found interesting was the prices of the drinks. Not that they were especially cheap (which, relative to Japanese restaurants of the same type, they were), but because of the relation of a few prices:

As you’ll note, some of the soda prices were higher than some of the beer prices. Beer is cheap here.

When we took the trains, I was reminded of something that I was struck by the last time I visited Spain six years ago: people begging for money. Not just ordinary panhandlers, which you would see sitting on sidewalks from time to time, but musicians. Lots of musical panhandlers. And in Madrid, they ride the trains. Every other time you get on one, you can at least hear them somewhere on the train, and often times they will pass through your car. Caught this fellow in the next car on the train we rode to the palace.

Another thing we noted: a lot of public snogging. If I may jump ahead of my narrative (it is now a week later and we’re in Athens), it seemed to progress as we traveled: in London, we saw some; in Spain, we saw more; in Athens, several couples were practically humping on the trains. Well, not quite so far, but we’re talking three couples, in one subway car, giving each other quite thorough tonsil examinations. Nothing more than first base, mind you, but they were going to town on that one base.

Anyhoo, Sachi and I saw the Royal Palace, not used for much except ceremonial events. A lot of what you would expect–ornate rooms with nice tapestries and elaborate paintings on the ceilings involving lots of cherubim, with baroque furnishings and beautiful china on display. Some of the curtains, carpets, and furniture were kind of worn and tattered in ways, and frankly, I would have been somewhat depressed living in a place like that. Maybe it’s more that it is a museum now, but even so, it’s hard to imagine it as being a place to live. There were the usual odd details, like having one chamber exclusively set aside for the king to get dressed in, the act being referred to as “ceremonial.” Not much more to report, as photographs were prohibited. Some nice images from the outside, however:

On the way back to Opera Station, we stopped for some “Nice Cream and Coffee,” which delivered as advertised (mint chip and strawberry cheesecake).

That night, we visited my Aunt Berta and her husband Vicente. They have both lived in Madrid for quite some time, my aunt having moved there as an adult after growing up in New York. Bert worked on a U.S. Army base for some time, and Vicente has been the Guitar teacher at the American School in Madrid for the past 23 years. He loves the guitar and will play it for you at any opportunity. That, and his personality, which is flamboyant, vivacious, gregarious… not enough words to describe Vicente. He is constantly joking.

We got video of Vicente playing the guitar, and have put a few pieces–a Flamenco piece, and an improvised “Sakura”–on YouTube. Here they are.

Frankly, I’m not even sure what the name of this restaurant is; it says “Hermion” at the main entrance, but “Epmeion” at the restaurant itself. (Web site here.) All I know is that we liked the restaurant a lot.

We found this place while walking around Athens. Out of Monastiraki Station, there is a narrow shopping street heading due east, named Pandrosou on the maps. Just before it hits Mnisikleous Street, you can see the entrance to the restaurant:

Just go down the small walkway, and there is a relatively secluded, quiet garden setup. We noted it along the way after having eaten a not-so-great McDonald’s lunch (we just wanted something familiar and hopefully clean), and thought it would make a nice dinner spot. In fact, when a helpful jeweler volunteered directions on the street to help us when we were lost, he noted that we had the card for the restaurant, and said it was a great place, that he always ate there himself.

And it was. First off, the waiters are great. They speak English very well, but most notably, they have a great sense of humor. Often joking, but never losing the touch of class that makes the restaurant special.

The food was excellent. They started us off with a bread roll that tasted very good, and some pruned olives along with herb-flavored cream cheese. We passed on the olives, but the cream cheese went terrific with the bread rolls. We ordered the Traditional Greek Salad, Tortellini a la Creme, and a Pork Souvlaki. For drinks, we accepted the offer of bottled water (not free, it’s 2 Euros) and two Heinekens; all drinks were ice cold.

The salad consisted of firm tomatoes, soft thick cucumber chunks, sliced peppers, onion, anchovies, a little lettuce, and a nice large pad of feta cheese. You can top this off with vinegar and olive oil, in the table. I usually go for a Caesar Salad, but this did nicely.

The main dishes were fantastic: the Tortellini had four different kinds of cheese and tasted it; it was delicious and quite filling. The Souvlaki was a pork shish kabob, six generous pieces served with a mix of small veggies including peas, corn and string beans, and a side of french fries. The pork was really good, and went very well with the tortellini. After eating that, we both felt very full.

After we finished, I asked for the check (“Only if you insist!” the waited asserted; I did, and he asked the head waiter to get the check in Greek, then added in English, “He insists!”), and they served us a nice liqueur which was faintly reminiscent of juniper, along with the bill.

The restaurant is a bit pricier than other places you might find, but really not that bad; our bill came to 41.20 Euros (about $54, or ¥5300), about what Sachi and I would expect to pay at a medium-to-cheap place in Tokyo. We did not choose the most expensive dishes by far, however–but they certainly were good enough for us! I don’t have any reference for other restaurants in Athens, but I have a feeling that it is well above par for its price range. But it felt a lot more expensive than it was.

If you’re in Athens and want to eat well, I’d recommend this place.

A few posts out of order. We just got in to Athens, and had to deal with Easter Sunday a second time–turns out the Orthodox Greeks have it a week after the rest of Europe does (or at least they did this year). So the day we arrived, Monday, a lot of shops were closed down. Fortunately, we were able to find some kiosks and shops open, even after 6pm, but almost had to buy from the hotel, which won’t even offer water for free–you have to buy that.

Here’s a sample: at the street kiosk we found, Sachi and I bought six drinks: four 500 ml. beers, a 1-liter bottled water, and a 500 ml. Coke Zero. Total bill: 7.5 Euros. Had we used the hotel mini bar, it would have been 37.5 Euros, for four 330 ml. beers, a 500 ml water, and a 330 ml Coke Light–smaller of everything, but exactly five times the cost!

And laundry fees are even higher here than they were in Spain–8.5 Euros for a single shirt, for example.

I think we’ll use the laundromat down the street.

I can only imagine that there are four reasons people would use these services:

1. They are rich
2. They are on an expense account
3. They are desperate and have no alternatives
4. They didn’t notice the prices and are in for a shock

The last full day in London we wanted to make sure we saw the rest of the major sights, so we headed over to Waterloo Station and made our way to the “London Eye,” the huge ferris wheel on the Thames. On the way, we got sidetracked by yet another street food market (a lot of those in London, not enough in Madrid).

One thing I have to say about London: they handle queues very badly. Or did I mention that before? In any case, the lines for the London Eye–or I should say, the line, it was a common feeder line–was huge, in large part because they sold tickets to lots of stuff there, not just the wheel. So, essentially, you have to wait on a combination of lines even if you want only the one ticket. It was quite a long wait.

Worse was actually in line at the wheel itself. Sachi and I were shuttled into one line, but somehow, people after us were allowed into a line right beside it where they ran past us, probably 50-100 people let in before we were despite getting in line much later. Very annoying.

Once on the wheel, however, you forget a lot of that. It’s a brilliant location for a wheel, good thinking there. The views are wonderful, though you do have to jockey for position inside the car for a good shot. But it’s lovely from up there.

The view of St. Paul’s, lit up very locally via a break in the clouds (click for 800 x 1200 version):

And of course, Westminster Palace and Big Ben (again, click for larger):

Off the wheel and on to Westminster:

No need to post an image of Big Ben from the street–rather common image. But I was interested in the detail of the clock:

Didn’t know there was an inscription on it: “O Lord, keep safe our Queen Victoria the First.”

In a small park across from parliament, a whole bunch of people for and/or for Sri Lanka were gathered in protest. The center of it was just in front of the statue of Winston Churchill, who seemed rather peeved at them.

In another part of the park was a statue I did not necessarily expect:

Maybe I missed the statue of Gandhi.

Westminster itself was a beautiful set of buildings, splendid architecture:

Afterwards, we went to Buckingham Palace, which, frankly, was not incredibly impressive–not nearly as much as Westminster was. There were two of the enormous-hatted guards in front (can they see from under those things?). In a flight of fancy, I imagined the Queen opening the door, leaning out, and screaming, “Get out of my god-damned driveway, you f***ing tourists!!!” But no, just the armed guards pacing back and forth. Seems like a rather boring job.

After that, we were off to Hyde Park, because the weather was good (or good enough) and Sachi was agreeable to me doing some birding. In Western Europe, a common bird is this particular magpie, in starkly contrasting white and black. It was essentially the same as the Azure-winged Magpie seen in Japan, right down to the long, broad tail, save for the coloring–and its commonness. Like the crow or bulbul in Japan, the magpie is everywhere, and frankly, I prefer it over the common birds of Japan.

Also well-represented in waterways in London are the cousins the Moorhen and the Coot, as well as Great Tits (with more yellow on their sides than I recall seeing in Japan).

But this is one I didn’t expect to see: a beautiful bird I spied at a distance once before: the Horned Grebe.

Click this one for a larger version:

Also in the park were some interesting denizens, among them a horde of squirrels.

There was also no small amount of horse, er, residue; equestrians were the reason for this. I wonder how much money you need to do this kind of hobby in downtown London.

We then went to the corner of Hyde Park which I’d heard of before: Speakers’ Corner. I wanted to see what Britons wanted to talk about. Of course, it’s not completely free speech; breach certain limits and the cops will stop you. But at that time, only one person was speaking, a fellow going on about Lazarus, to no purpose I could discern.

At night, Sachi and I enjoyed some good food at “Ye Olde London,” a pub we wnt to mostly because it was close to the hotel. Sachi was less impressed by her vegetable order (too many potatoes), but I loved the fish & chips they served.