Author: Karen Twomey

Traveling with the wayward warrior cheerleaders.

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Lynne Messner, Ellen DeFlora Sciortino and I mixed it up and instead of going to a Palm Beach spa, we are in Vancouver. The only thing this place has in common with South Florida are the mullets. It’s going to rain the entire vacation, so Lynne is the whitest entity that we will see in the Great White North. In fact, I’ve taken up curling, as the keratin washes away and I am left with my native Jewfro. As expected, the people here are incredibly polite. Even at the hockey game tonight, when the Canucks fight and check, they say please before hitting the Red Wings. Lynne stayed behind and Ellen and I went to the game. We decided late, so came about 1/3 into the game; which with the exchange rate being 1.33 US to Canadian dollars, equaled seeing a whole game in the states. We bought tickets from an incredibly polite scalper, who allowed Ellen to go through the security before I paid him. Just like they do in NYC at Madison Square Garden! We thought instead of seeing the Canucks, we were going to get Canfucked, but Dudley Dooright hooked us up. Every time you pay for something here, it’s like Wednesday sale days at Macy’s that you’re not exactly sure what you paid, but it’s far less than you expected. If you don’t want to pay in Canadian dollars, they’ll except 1 Dunkin Donut for every 1.33 Tim Horton’s. Unlike the Yanks, the Canucks won. After being up almost 24 hours, it’s time to send in the Zamboni and call it a day, eh?

Traveling with the wayward warrior cheerleaders.

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Today, we borrowed umbrellas from the polite bellman and went over to Granville Island to the market; which had a huge farmer’s market, shops, and food stands with many foods to choose from like poutine, donuts, salmon or poutine flavored donuts, poutine topped with salmon, or donuts filled with poutine. Lynne Messner chased her lunch down with a nice glass of maple syrup, while Ellen DeFlora Sciortino drank a sidecar of poutine gravy. We’ve yet to exchange any of our currency for Canadian cash mainly since we all remember a time that we were denied a gumball or a laundromat coin operated washing machine or a parking meter, as a damn dirty Canadian coins infiltrated our American coin slots. I will not be party to filling our American coin slots with similar looking, yet suspiciously tinnier currency!

We went to the 1000 acre Stanley Park. If you get the special drink at the park’s concession stand, it’s served in a commemorative Stanley Cup. We took a horse drawn carriage ride around the park taking in the sites. As I tried to blend in with the native totem poles, somehow my singular face and lack of height caused me to stand out from the crowd. As we tried to get a cab out of the park, I called the Yellow Cab Company (Checker was still in the penalty box from last night’s hockey game) and spoke to a rude dispatcher. I found out that since Canadians are so polite, they import rude dispatchers from NYC along with squirrels from Central Park. In exchange, we were given Canadian Geese that shit all over parks. Anyway, the cab didn’t come, as it got wetter, darker, and colder. After an hour, just when we thought we’d need to find some hibernating bears to snuggle up to and weather the night, a Mexican man graciously led us out the park into Civilization. Once we told him it was urgent and we NAFTA get right back to our hotel, our friend from the most southern part of North America saved us.

We ended our night in Gastown, a hip neighborhood that has nothing to do with farts, especially old ones.

Traveling with the wayward warrior cheerleaders.

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Today, was like planes, trains, and automobiles as we traveled to Victoria by taxi-ferry-taxi. Victoria, or as I call her, Vickie, is the capital of British Columbia, as parliament sits in its beautiful harbor. Depicted is that government seat during the 15 minutes that it stopped raining on this trip. We slogged through the rain to the Empress Hotel, but failed to impress the Empress with our soggy clothes, although our’s looked better than the Emperor’s new clothes, We went to the colorful Fisherman’s Wharf where we sought refuge from the incessant rain on this guy, Noah’s houseboat, but he sent us away for being a trio of the same gender.

As we returned to our rooms, I now understood Victoria’s Secret, as I blow-dried my bra, sweater, and jacket. I’m going to be their first runway model with chub rub from the friction of my wet jeans. I felt like I’d been Canadian Goosed! At least I was fortunate to find that a salmon had swum upstream up my pant leg to defray our dinner cost. Better to bear Victoria’s Secret than to have Prince Albert in a can-adian city!

Traveling with the wayward warrior cheerleaders.

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Well, hello my dajeerling! Today, we started the day with high tea at the Empress. For $82, you’d think you’d at least get a sandwich with crust. Apparently, the high price supports the cost of all the finger sandwich crusts to be shipped to feed the starving children in Africa. As our tea steeped, the cost of the scones got steeper. All in all, high tea was a tealicious experience followed by a trip to the washroom for the subsequent high pee ritual.

With our pinkies still out, we moved on to Butchart Gardens, a lovely botanical gardens. Of course, as soon as we got there, it started to pour. The gardens nicely provide you with umbrellas made in China; which, coincidentally, the rest of our fellow tourists found out that they were all no more than Six Degrees of Kevin Bac-Yen in the manufacturing of the aforementioned umbrellas. Aside from the horticulturists and the Japanese Beetles, we were the only non-Chinese in the gardens. Somehow, they were so up our butts with their picture taking that they somehow ended up in our selfies and will be seen in our future colonoscopy films.

From there, we walked around Victoria’s downtown and went to a British Pub to watch the Yankees win. Our polite Canadians allowed for all TVs to be on the game until its conclusion, at which time, they returned to their regular viewing of SIFN, the Saskatchewan Ice Fishing Network.

Vancouver and Victoria are at the literal roots of the locally sourced food movement. We finished our day with a locally sourced meal. At home, I go to the closest ShopRite to locally source mine. By the time we heard in detail about the no-pesticide, no-GMO, grass-fed, organic, sustainable, greenhouse gas free ingredients that compose the menu, their locally sourced produce had rotten and could not be served. We shared a package of twinkies from circa 1967 and called it a night.

Traveling with the wayward warrior cheerleaders.

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We set out early from Victoria to return to Vancouver for our final day of vacation. Ellen DeFlora Sciortino must’ve seen the Wizard, as she pushed through her fear of flying to enable us to take a seaplane and return to Vancouver on a 35-minute flight instead of a minimum 4 hours taxi-ferry-taxi trip. Ellen has courage and will fight you with one hand tied behind her back. Interestingly, as the seaplane is on water and the air, the stewardess had gills and wings having adapted to her role. We landed safely in Vancouver and having paid for the Northern Exposure package, we were flashed by the pilot, as we deplaned.

With one fear conquered, we headed to the Capilano Suspension Bridge to walk between two mountains on a gorge. We Wallendaed our way across the expanse. At times the suspense was killing me, as I wasn’t sure if we’d go one sway or the other. Ellen finished the morning off skydiving, paragliding, running with the bulls, putting her head in a lion’s mouth, eating blowfish, and doing the tide pod challenge.

We descended the mountain and went to the Vancouver Aquarium where Ellen swam in the shark tank and fed the piranhas barehanded. Lynne and I had to finally pull her away from trying to plug an electric eel into a socket.

We finished the day with dinner in Gastown. Ellen wanted to light a homeless man’s canned chili farts in Gastown, but we felt that she had already faced too many fears and conquered too many dangers. Tomorrow’s challenge will be ordering the in-air seafood meal on our way home. Until next time…

Traveling with Mr. Golden Underwear.

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Today, was about dimensions-heights, increasing widths, and depths. The increasing widths will come from the French cuisine with today featuring all French foods appropriated for 70s key parties including crepes, quiche, French Onion Soup, Croquet Monseuirre, and Creme Brûlée. We only missed fondue, which like in “This Is Us’s” crockpot likely caused a few fromage flare ups. The creme brûlée was so awesome that instead of having a nightmare of falling through the ice to my death, I have a new fantasy of being in a giant vat and eating my way up before breaking through the caramelized surface. As for heights, we climbed to the top of the Arc De Triumph, which truly is a triumph for claustrophobic asthmatics. For those of you who think Scott has shrunken and is now living in my nautilus necklace, it’s actually the nauseating spiral staircases built for the height of its Commissioner, Napoleon. Our next height took us to the top of the Eiffel Tower for a guided tour with other Americans. Here’s where we hit our depth, as the former Cash Cab King and Queen, answered every question posed to the group by our tour guide on French history, architecture, and art. Despite the depth of our knowledge, we won nothing but the disdain of our fellow Americans, who couldn’t tell a French fry from a pomme frite. We ended the day storming Bastille to the Place de Vosges. I’m just thinking from inside the box when planning tomorrow, but from these dimensions of height x width x depth, I’m prepared to see Picasso’s cubism tomorrow and perhaps an annoying mime getting out of an imaginary box.

Traveling with Mr. Golden Underwear.

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Today was a travel day, as we left Paris for a short stint in Lisbon. As is pictured, Scott truly is Magellan and must’ve had mad pin the tail on the donkey skills as a boy, as he could’ve never have been in a place before and he’s say, “we have to go North, then West” and we would magically end up where we needed to go. When he was given a map of the metro, you’d think he was being given a Louis XIII gilded chair, he was so excited. Yet, we’d pop up out of a Metro station, walk a bit, and be exactly where we needed to be.

I recognize that the European me is pretty much the direct opposite of the NYC me in so many ways. In European cities, I stop to take pictures of buildings knowing in my heart that I’ll never look at these pics again, but they’ll make transferring to a new iPhone so much slower a year or 2 from now. At home, I walk by NYC landmarks with the same enthusiasm as passing a Sunoco Station. In Europe, I walk 8-9 miles a day. At home, I wish to win MegaMillions so I can hire someone to carry me around the city in a onesie snuggle suit on a cold day. In Europe, I take the metro. In NYC, I view the subway as if “Beneath the Planet of the Apes” is a real thing (no shout out to racist Roseanne). I’m a surface person all around. I even chose to drive over bridges vs tunnels, you damn dirty ape!

Paris was certainly fantastic, but with few exceptions. It turns out the Hunchback of Notre Dame never had a hump, but was perpetually hunched over lighting up cigarette-after-cigarette like many of his countrymen. Pepe La Pew to all the smoking. I’m not sure if it’s the retaliation against Trump’s tariffs, but you’d think there has to be an embargo on ketchup in this country. They dole it out as infrequently as their warmth towards tourists, yet is a city that serves fries pretty much with every meal. However, I do give them credit, especially the men, that so many of them walk around with baguettes sticking out of their backpacks, while in the US we act like gluten is the second coming of Ted Bundy (I’ll avoid the bad cereal killer joke).

Anyway, we got Lisbon; which they call Lisboa. It’s fairly obnoxious that we don’t call countries and cities by the names they call themselves. It’s like meeting someone at work who says, “Call me Teddy” and we dumb Americans say, “Sure, Ed!”. We had dinner in a wine cellar that used to be a port winery. Beautiful city, but while we were in Rossio Square, we were asked 3 times if we wanted to buy Cocaine. Even European traveling me doesn’t follow those white lines.

 

Traveling with Mr. Golden Underwear.

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Slow day, as we boarded our ship for the next 10 days and left Lisbon for our next stop, Porto. With the average age of the passengers on this cruise being in the low 70s, we’re kind of feeling like we walked into a brochure for a community for active seniors. For some reason, one of the excursions is to be in a Colonial Penn Life Insurance Commercial with Alex Trebec. Instead of gathering around the piano bar, they hover round it in their electric scooters. 1/12th of the passengers have been on the ship, since Australia 92 days ago. We met one of these couples and the guy actually referenced his Fidelity portfolio, so they were basically a mirage in your 401K journey. As pictured, budding author, Scott Twomey, wants to write one of his novels that teem with ass violence on a future 2030 world cruise, but by then his protagonist, Jim Deacon, will be so worried about his prostate that he might not be able to tune up a few drug lords like in his first 2 novels. Our waiter from Croatia told us that this cruise is different, since the guests have manners. Dorothy, we aren’t on Carnival anymore!

 

Traveling with Mr. Golden Underwear.

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After 22 years of marriage and 27 together, Scott almost left me for his dream cone. She melted his heart by simply melting in the Porto sun. Porto is known as the city of bridges having a total of 8, while NYC is not known at all for having many more than 8. Interestingly, the home’s fronts are tiled just like this church. After getting tough port wine stains off of his front door, Mr. Clean became a national hero. We learned that both Cro Magnan and Neanderthal Man both hailed from Portugal, yet Portugal the Man hails from Alaska. Our DNA is only 12% different from those early men, yet with the average age of our fellow cruisers being near 75, some of them got alerted by Ancestry.com that Phil Neanderthal is likely a 2nd or 3rd cousin match to them (not to mention each being part of the sites data breach). Goodbye to Portugal, as we fight rough seas towards England and France. As with both Portugal the Country and Portugal the Man, I Feel It Still.

 

Traveling with Mr. Golden Underwear.

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We are adrift on the North Atlantic with the Day at Sea. While I referred to my flight to Paris, as veal class, our day truly simulated that as we were confined to our small quarters and force fed until we couldn’t move sadly much like a baby calf. While not exactly milk fed, Scott did take a turn under the tap of the soft ice cream machine. When I called my mom, it dawned on me that our day schedule on the ship mirrors that of her independent/assisted living facility. Much like their residents, we have assistance with driving, meals, and housekeeping. We both have bingo-check ☑️. (Simulation pictured). We both have checkers-Bingo! Although we went to the gym, it may as well have been chair yoga, as it’s hard to keep your balance on a rocking ship. It’s like doing crunches with bed spins. While we passed on the line dancing lessons, trivia contests, and art lectures, somewhere in Boca Del Vista, there’s the cruise ship B Team teaching the Macarena and the Electric Slide to some Golden Girls. While we are certainly decades away from the everyday veal experience, aside from bailing on a performance of “Some Enchanted Evening” that my Mom would groove to, it was a pretty good relaxing day. However, I did order the veal weiner schnitzel for dinner to punctuate our lardass day.