Author: kbtwomey

Traveling with the Ancient.

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Well, despite paying $200 so that we can have “Zoom-the fastest internet on the seas,” the comparison of Zoom to dial-up speeds would be equal to the speeds in a race between Christopher Reeve and Stephen Hawking. This causes a high degree of difficulty in being timely with my daily posts.

Today, we spent in St. Lucia where they practice a form of voodoo known as obeah where they communicate with ancestors and have visions of what is to come. The locals must’ve had a collective vision about the arrival of Devra Robins for as soon as she got out of the cab, they all rushed to her and called her “bossy lady”. Of course, she tried to boss us into believing that they called her boss lady, but Lauren and I know what we heard. As they all surrounded her trying to rub in her suntan lotion, feed her, and get her high on the herb, we realized that they were preparing her to be sacrificed to the volcano. After realizing she was not a virginal child, when she heard someone comment “You be 40” to which she replied that she was much older than that. Alas, he was referring to the band UB40, who’s song “Red, red wine” probably be close to 40 by now. In any event, instead of getting to enjoy a single cabin on the ship tonight, we averted Dev being used to appease the deities. Meanwhile, back on the ship, my Mom adopted an Indonesian waiter, who’s been disowned by his parents for being gay. As long as my new brother, Christophe, sends some of his wages home to our Mom, I’m good with having a little brother.

Now, the three of them are off to a magic show. He must be a great magician for as soon as I heard about it, he made me disappear. Anyway, I’m going to watch a picture buffer on a friend’s Facebook feed and call it a day.

Traveling with the Ancients.

We spent the day in Rihanna’s homeland, Barbados. We had a beautiful beach day despite some light rain, but of course, we had an umbrella…ella…ella. We shared the ocean with a monkey, who was being forced to swim (I hope his owner gets a some flung poo his way), two horses who were lead to water but couldn’t be made to drink, and a Rasta with who knows how many creatures were living in his hair. I’m sure if you did a dread check, several animals could be taken off the endangered species list. We were driven both ways by a driver, who’s eyes resembled the blind sheik. He certainly must have been an optimist, as even if he had sight, he could never look back, as he had no rear-view mirror. Fortunately, the President of Ghana was on the Island creating traffic making a safety barrier.

On another note, I think we stumbled upon a Pinterest cruise with people competing for best door decorations and family communication hacks. There’s dry erase boards letting family members know that they’re at the casino, shopping, and the pool. I saw one saying if the “ships a’rocking, don’t be a’knocking”. These tend to be the same families who wear matching t-shirts everyday with sayings like “Sea our Family Cruising,” or “Oh Ship, Look’s who’s 50,” or my favorite “Pigged out at the buffet, now in the bathroom-Bomb’sAway!” Ok, that last one was mine, but I have no Pinterest in group t-shirts. We also don’t need no stink in’ badges. On the other hand, a nice dry erase board would’ve come in handy.

Traveling with the Ancients.

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Today was our last day on the cruise, which was a day at sea. As almost 3000 people fight for a couple hundred lounge chairs, it’s like the Hunger Games. However, as everyone is bloated and overfed from the buffets, pizza bar, and dining room; it’s more like the Extremely Full Games. The pool area was a sea of humanity, but there’s minimal humanity at sea. By 830am, there wasn’t a chair that didn’t have an ownership staking flip flop or Romance novel. People think of Thurston and Lovey Howell on the QE2 with their steamer trunks when the day at sea is more like the late-night Circle Line Cruise with the hood representing. Sure, we could’ve left the pool area to go to final art auction which touts famous artists known only to those who frequent Holiday Inns. Of course, there was the napkin folding class where if you’re deemed the star pupil, you mysteriously disappear at sea only to be held hostage in the ship’s laundry room folding napkins for the next 30 years. Always as you leave a cruise, you have to put your bags in the hallway to be reunited in customs. I’m sure my new Indonesian brother, Christophe, packed himself a few apples and is folded up in my Mom’s suitcase ready to start his new life serving the people in her senior living place. Until next time…

Traveling with a Lisa Gags order.

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After my plane last night had a mechanical issue, I arrived 3 1/2 hours late to be greeted by Lisa Murphy Gags, who was already way into her cups of O’ban Starbucks. As I’d been up exactly 24 hours as we arrived at the hotel, I didn’t realize that the cabbie didn’t hand me back my credit card. However, he kindly returned my card to the hotel. It’s like Harry Potter magic! We began touring today as hapless zombies seeing all the cool buildings in old town Edinburgh deciding that they were all the Hogwarts Campus or Edinburgh University rather than bothering in our exhaustion to look up the correct names giving our short-sighted selves a rather kilted view of the city. Tomorrow, we will exercise greater diligence in our learning. To add to it, no matter what these Scots are saying, it all sounds like they are offering me marshmallows shaped like pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers. We went to the Christmas Markets; which had rides, about 700 food and Craft kiosks, and 1 Hannukah kiosk. It turns out that its owner was a wandering Jewish merchant who thought he heard that Scots liked to haggle, only to find out they like haggis.

After the terrific markets, we grabbed a drink at the famed Balmoral Hotel where they held these 400 bottles of Scotch in captivity. I believe this caused William Wallace to say, “they may take away our Scotch, but they’ll never take away our freedom.” Free the single malts will be Lisa’s battle cry for the trip. I have to get to sleep now as I’ve been up for 37 hours and my 18-hour bra isn’t holding up causing one Scot to try and use my double Ds for a bagpipe.

Traveling with a Lisa Gags order.

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Traveling with a Lisa Gags Order-We woke up late and missed most of the 5 hours of daylight turning us into mole people by dinner. In the rain, Lisa thought that she looked like Mary Poppins, but with her umbrella blowing up in the wind, she more resembled Mary Poppin-pills. We walked the Royal Mile seeing lots of church’s called Kirks in Scotland (or Captain in Vulcan), the Bank of Scotland, St. Giles Cathedral, several boarding schools with priggish headmasters, and Holyrood Palace; which is the Queen’s digs in Scotland which were under repair, so we couldn’t get in. I wonder if Liz’s corgis did a number not on the royal wee wee pads thwarting our visit? After dark (known in the States as early afternoon), Lisa wanted to go to the plaid light district to see the hookers in the windows. What tartans these women are! By the time we got to Edinburgh Castle, the guards saw us and, despite Lisa’s Mediterranean looks; must’ve thought we were Vikings storming the castle, as they closed the solid doors in our faces.

Soaked, we returned to our hotel where Lisa left her wet crimson wool coat on the bed. After an extremely meat filled dinner in a South African Restaurant (a totally Krugerandom place to eat), we went back to our hotel to discover that Lady McLisa’s coat had left red stains on the duvet. As she scrubbed and scrubbed at the stains to no avail, she repeatedly said, “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!” before saying, “What’s done is done!” Sure, she won’t have her Marriott/Starwood Platinum Status turned to tin like mine.

Traveling with a Lisa Gags order.

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As Edinburgh is only a 45 minute train ride from Glasgow, we Glaswent there for the day. We took Scotrain sans Scott Twomey. Glasgow is considered more the real Scotland, but we prefer more of the Epicot representation that Edinburgh affords us tourists. I should’ve known after taking the Scottish SATs, as one of the analogies was Edinburgh is to Sean Connery as Glasgow is to Timothy Dalton. We were neither shaken nor stirred by Glasgow.

We started in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum just in time to walk through with a rambunctious school tour of 7 year old gingers. Unfortunately, after an hour in any museum, I pretty much revert to a 7 year old ginger. Being in a museum is still life. We saw the University if Glasgow, which Hogwarts is modeled after. Although Leftist Lisa believes that Uber is causing medallion owning cabbies to kill themselves, we succumbed to requesting an Uber after waiting for a black car to no avail. We next headed to the Glasgow Cathedral where Mary Queen of Scots is buried. Turns out she married her cousin, who was killed a year later, only to then marry his murderer. That sounds like an episode of Jerry MacSpringer. Shakespeare missed a bestseller on that one. Behind the cathedral is the Necropolis; which is not a goth disco, as we thought, but is 47 acres of dead entombed Scots. We passed on the shortdead cookies offered in a mausoleum. We moved onto the Merchant District with shops and restaurants which must compulsory serve haggis and blood snausages. With a diet rich in organ meat, no wonder there’s 47 acres of dead people! We went to two more Christmas markets; which just like NY Street Fairs, all have the same street meat and junk to buy except you pay in pounds.

Tomorrow, we head to the countryside to the Highlands. I believe we are stopping at Glengarry and Glenross site of a historic battle fought with a set of steak knives.

Traveling with a Lisa Gags Order

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Today, we took an excursion on a deluxe motorcoach aka bus into the Highlands up to Loch Ness. I was a little put off when the driver kept asking us if we wanted to look under his kilt to see his Loch Ness Monster. Not only did we refrain, but we are now joining the #wee-too movement. We actually started the day bright and early in Rob Roy country (Lisa is a more of a wine drinker though). Rob Roy, a sheep herder, was the Scottish Robin Hood. The term blackmail came from how he operated his shepherding business. No, he didn’t make charcoal etchings of Farmer MacDougal in a compromising position with Lambchop, but it was the practice of extorting protection for property (herds) from the rustlers; who actually worked for him anyway. Essentially, today’s mafia-owned garbage services owe Rob Roy a little taste of their action. Scotch guarding wasn’t just for upholstery back then. As the bus crisscrossed on its way to the Highlands, we seemed to be traveling in a pattern, which turned out to be argyle. We went through many actual set locations of the Harry Potter movies, which included Hagrid’s Enchanted Forest and the steam railroad; which serves as the Hogwart’s Express. As I haven’t read the books, I didn’t know the places, but did see many of the locales from my favorite book, “Green Eggs and Ham” spying a house, a mouse, a box sans fox, a car, a tree, the dark, in the rain, and a train. From there, we saw the castle from Monty Python’s, “Life of Brian,” where I sustained just a flesh wound.

Entering into the Highlands, our heavily accented tour guide explained that even warring factions had to provide hospitality to one another due to a tightly adhered to code, as the climate is so intemperate and food so scarce. Then, he went on a rant about Glen Campbell, who was apparently the worst guest ever in the Highlands, when he stayed with the MacDonalds. I couldn’t imagine what Glen could’ve done short of keeping the Witchita Lineman still on the line. It turns out that the tour guide was talking about the Clan Campbell, not Glen, who after the clan took the MacDonald’s hospitality killed them all the next morning. Far beats my worst houseguest, who log-jammed the downstairs bathroom during a party one time. We went to the majestic mountains of Glencoe where we had a light lunch of Scottish Broth and bread. The bread was so hard and crusty that we developed Loch Jaw.

Before debussing (it’s like deplaning, but low budget), our guide asked us if we believed in Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster. Of the 37 of us, I was 1 of 5 of the believers. Hell, last year in Iceland, I believed in the Northern Lights and didn’t see them either. We took an hour cruise on Loch Ness; but didn’t see Nessie fluke; which was much like the boredom of doing a whale watch. Bigfoot and I had a good laugh about that. Our boat’s captain sang quite a few sea shanties, of which Lisa was amazed that I knew many of the words. I guess my non-specific Ancestry.com 6-8% British/Irish/Scottish heritage supplied me instinctively with the lyrics, as I knew to take the high road and not the low road to get to Scotland before ye! Back to Edinburgh as I’m Loched out.

Traveling with a Lisa Gags order

Today, we started and ended our day with macabre fully understanding the humours of the body by nightfall. We began the day in the Surgeon’s Hall Museum, as Edinburgh has one of the oldest Universities and was on the forefront of moving us from leeches and poultices towards semi-modern medicine practices with just a wee bit of bloodletting. In the 1500s, surgeon’s were part of the barber’s guild with podiatrists being part of the blacksmith guild. So back in the day, you could get a twofer, when someone’s cart ran over your leg by having your leg removed, while getting a bit off the top, as well. Hence the word barbaric! Whether a surgeon drilled a hole in your head, amputated any number of appendages or drained you of your body fluids, anesthesia had not been invented, which makes Johnny Walker the first Dr. Kevorkian. Universal precautions against infection included the surgeon wearing a tweed or cashmere overcoat. Harris Tweed scrubs likely ensured that if you lived through the surgery, you’d hope that dry cleaning’s mysterious martinizing process would save you from dying from a fabric swatch infection. Jonathan Lister created his namesake sanitizer saving mankind lives back then versus saving us from the blown up bathrooms of today. We headed upstairs to see the vast surgical specimens of the day. ‘Twas a veritable Jeffrey Dahmer all-you-can-eat buffet with jars of organs, limbs, and tumors. No wonder Fergus’s Haggis stand outside the museum went out of business. We saw many scoliotic skeletons; which were offered with or without rickets including one woman who’s spine could’ve monogrammed Shirley’s shirts and with her legs fused almost together. Calling all the single ladies, all the singles ladies, she died giving birth to her 2nd child proving there’s a lid for every knot. We stopped at the gift shop where Lisa brought some gangrenous toes for stocking stuffers for the kids. Quake will be getting an Innkeeper’s femur for a special Christmas gift.

We headed to Rose St., which has shops and Edinburgh’s pub crawl. If you had a pint in each place, you’d become a keg. We walked around the University of Edinburgh breathing in the academia with a hint of vomit just like at US Universities. We went to the highest rated restaurant in Edinburgh, the Devil’s Advocate, where I had soup with haggis made as a vegetarian option with vegetarian haggis. I think they probably messed up in the kitchen and just told me it was veggie lung, as it came from a sheep who was vegan. Regardless, it was excellent meaning that my pallet now has good lung capacity.

Finally, we closed out the trip at Mary King’s Close. How apropos, we closed at the close! The close is now an underground city, as the city center was built upon a 12 story building. The poor would live 12 to a 10×14 room with about a 5’ 6” ceiling with no light and all would share a bucket (not of chicken), but of shitting. The bucket could only be emptied 2x a day by the youngest child into the close or street. Cows were kept inside, so the British wouldn’t steal their cattle quadrupling the twice daily alley deposits. It almost makes United Airlines veal class look attractive. If I had to live in those conditions, I’d head to the surgeon for a proper drilling of my brain. Of course the unsanitary conditions led the unlucky inhabitants to either succumb to the Black Plague or the Bubonic Plague. If you ever find yourself reading a yelp review of plagues, the recommendations are in favor of the Bubonic Plague; which when you drain the lesions and you’d have a 50% survival rate versus the Black Death with a scant 5% survival of literally coughing your guts up. Either way, we could only give 3 stars to each plague, as the service and atmosphere both scored low. Finally, we learned that doctors believing in the bodies humours would test for diabetes by sipping some of the patient’s urine to taste for sugar. That’s why the Patron Saint of Physicians is Abbott Labs Test Strips. To think that today’s doctors bitch about putting records in an Electronic Medical Record. After a final walk past the Castle, we stuck a fork in Scotland with Lisa taking a connecting flight home and me taking a direct flight as I’ll get to the US before she!