The Kid Arrives

A month has flown gone by with no update from me - slack Batman. It continues to be a busy time and this will be the case until we leave in January. As I write this blog, I’m enjoying a very good coffee in a trendy coffee house (Crema) in Nashville. My niece has been here for 2 weeks and we are enjoying a jam packed itinerary as is customary on any of Batman’s trips for visitors. The kid is currently in the Country Music Hall of Fame museum which I’ve seen so I’m checking out some local coffee houses while I wait for her.

RAGNAR. So, the last time I wrote was after our trip out west to the canyons around Utah and Arizona. There was plenty of work and flying going on and last minute preparations for the 200 mile RAGNAR relay race from Cumberland to DC. I was not running this time but instead, was the Captain organising the team of 6. They were again the Aussie Drop Bears and an ultra team of 6, unlike the majority of traditional 12 person teams. Thus the team runs 6 legs each totalling around 40-50km by the end. I was initially on the team but due to a calf injury mid year, I decided to pull out and focus instead on the marine corp marathon end Oct. The team were an entertaining and fun bunch of Aussies as always and it was a long 2 days in the van with little sleep, no showers and lots of wondering why the hell we were all doing this…AGAIN. But the Aussie Drop Bears crossed the finish line exhausted, proud and relieved to have a well earned beer. The RAGNAR relay race series is about to begin in Australia so I’m certain I’ll be running this back home at some stage.

Kid Arrives. My niece AC (the kid, albeit in her 30’s now) arrived early October and we have already knocked over a few museums in DC and spent a week in New York. She’s super excited to see everything and has to be the best travel companion you could ask for…apart from her having travel sickness on just about anything that moves. Poor kid, she’s been like that all her life but she’s a trooper and chews a few motion sickness tablets. We weren’t quite so lucky on the bus to New York. Hmmm, we got about 2.5 hours along, she’d slept all the way and the driver stopped to change over at a service centre. I immediately thought, great, she can get some fresh air and the last hour will be fine. Nope, as soon as that bus stopped in position, she had her head in the bag. Blart. Maybe the final hour to New York won’t be so good. But, the driver was great and a few people swapped their front seat for us and the kid felt much better after a good spew. I had visions of getting a taxi to nearby Philly and taking a train for the rest of the trip but the kid said she would be fine and she was. We made it to New York with no more chucky chuck. Mind you, I cancelled the bus trip home and booked us on the train which proved to be a good idea.

New York was crazy as always. The weather was not kind to us. I didn’t think but we went up the Empire early to only see fog and clouds. We decided to go back later that night (as you are allowed to with a same day ticket) and the night view was incredible. We weren’t able to get up the Rockerfeller on this trip but managed to do the usual tourist stuff and a few new things for me. Of note, we took a tour in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg through the Jewish Hasidic community. Wow, this was a total culture shock and we were looking into a little sheltered bubble of another world. I had no idea about traditional Jewish culture and the tour guide came from this community, leaving it as an adult and now taking tours to help people learn more about the Hasidic Jews. The tour guide was excellent and I can totally recommend this tour.  Tours by Frieda 

We ate our way through the city as the kid is a bit of a foodie. We visited one of the famous Carlo’s Bakerys, had a donut at Dough, ate fantastic Italian as Little Eataly near 9-11 and had a great bagel breakfast at Sadelles in Soho. We of course had hot dogs at the ice hockey as the kid wanted to see her first ice hockey game and I made sure I got a Ben & Jerry’s fix at Rockerfeller center. And how could I forget tea at Tiffany’s on 5^thAvenue. This has only been open a short while and I had to book this a month earlier, get up a 6am to buy tix as soon as the website opened, tix sell out in a few minutes. Lucky I reckon she’s a good kid !! It was a treat and she was exicted to tick another foodie box. She also made a sizeable purchase too so that was nice to see. 

I was surprised she wanted to visit the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier museum but she loved it. We had to rush through but I made sure she saw inside the ship, the bridge, the aircraft of deck and the space shuttle Enterprise and Concorde out back. We also took a wander through the old USS Growler submarine. The kid was overwhelmed with the size of everything and I told her that these things are small compared to today’s fleet of ships and subs. She loved every second of it which made me happy to see as a former military girl.

 

We went out to Liberty and walked around but the weather was completely foul. Wet, cold and windy. We had gone from 26c when we arrived in shorts and were down to 10c freezing in our limited coat selection. Note to self, summer has apparently just finished all of a sudden. 

I visited the 9-11 museum again as I will unlikely return here or to New York again. It is hallowed ground and always leaves you thinking about the fateful day back in 2001. We also walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, as you do, to wrap up our last day and squeezed in a look at the original Winnie The Poo in the NY Library (thanks to my friend PH for that tip). I also took the kid to Grand Central Train Station to marvel at the decorative main terminus. We got home to DC exhausted and my legs were screaming with tiredness. 

Nashville. We had a day at home to wash, rest and repack for the next leg. I managed to get a 20k run in the afternoon and the change to cool weather made a big difference after the high humidity of recent months.  It's 2 weeks now to the marathon and I have no idea how I'm going to survive it :o

We headed off to Nashville, Tennessee where we currently are. I’ve been here before but we are doing a few new things that I’m quite excited about. We took an uber to the station and the guy had a rating of perfect 5.0. Wow, this guy must be fabulous. We jump in the car and he’s a young guy, just finished college, proudly saying we were his first uber ride. Crikey, I wasn’t sure whether to be scared, honoured or happy for him. Probably all three. He got us there safely so it was a good ending. We were delayed 2 hours getting out of DC as there was rain and storms. Thankfully, the kid flew well and we had no chucky chucks on the plane trip. 

Uber Story 1. We arrived late in the afternoon and headed uptown via Uber again. Oh my god, this is a story to tell. FARK, the picture on my phone was scary even though it was a tiny thumbnail and I’m blind….long bearded dude (lets call him Johnny for this story) in a red ‘pick up’ truck – never had a pickup truck before but we are in Nashville I guess. He’s rating was 4.67….anything less than 4.8 is a worry as far as Uber driver ratings go. It was hilarious. He was scarier than his picture and the pickup was so loud, like it needed a new muffler or belonged on the dragway on Saturday night. His truck smelled of weed and cat piss. He was friendly alright but he had a good thick drawl of an accent, long scraggly hair, had 2 big silver skull rings and a big southern Georgia cap on his dash. He might well have been related to Willie Nelson with all those good looks :o

The kid hops in the front seat and she looked like a midget in the big pickup. I’m in the back thinking what the hell are we doing in this truck and I was way too scared to look behind to see if there was anything dead in the back of his truck. Anyway, we’re driving down the road and he’s telling us about how bad the uber map application is, he’s rung customer support …in Korea….gives them a serve about their lack of competence…tells them that he’s not rude, they are just snowflakes…..and then he yells…AWW MAR GOD LORK  someone just hit that girl (pedestrian). Shit, she’s on the ground on the corner and I’m thinking oh god, can’t look, I’ll be sick, I’ll faint. But she gets up and was ok. Light goes green and Johnny says I’m going get that guys number so he burns off (imagine the loud roaring noise of his red pickup truck dragging off up the road). I said I had a phone and could photo it and he’s getting up behind the cars but wasn’t quite sure which one - this was clearly a scene from Nashville Five-O ;) We didn’t get the number plate but thankfully, we arrived safely to our drop off point. He finally drops up off and as we step out of his high truck…..watch for cars he says – god we laughed !!!  We walked away and just burst out laughing, so loud, we were trying not to piss ourselves, we were crossing our legs and just in tears, hysterical with laughter. This was the kid's 5 minute welcome to Nashville.  

Before hitting the town, I played some Bobby McGee and Harper Valley PTA in our hotel room just to get her in the mood. Who doesn't love Charley Pride and she'd not heard the HV PTA song - just a classic. We enjoyed an easy dinner out and wandered the streets of Nashville. The kid was in heaven. She's always wanted to come here, thanks to my mum's influence I think. She bought some boots of course and I've got some cool country girl shirts to wear with my jeans tonight. Of course, we hit the candy shop and helped the economy by eating a few hundred calories of sweetness.

Uber Story 2. We took another Uber into town again in the morning. This was a much more enjoyable ride but memorable again. We had the usual Australia conversation, how long is the flight, do kangaroos hop along the Sydney Harbour bridge....The driver said he’d tried vegemite and hated it. It’s always good to hear people’s reactions to that foul black paste. He then said his ex-father-in-law went to Australia last year to meet a woman he’d met online - this was going to be good. Apparently it was a miserable trip. The lady picked him up from the airport and chucked him out after 2 hours!!  They had a big fight and didn’t get on. So he was stuck in some place (not a big city either) with nothing to see or do. He had to get another motel to get away from her. I don’t know where he was but it must have been quite remote. We had a good laugh and felt sorry for his x-FIL, such a long way to go for 2 hours and a fight. Not a good advertisement for Aussie chicks !!  Anyway, when he dropped us off he laughed and said, now it was his turn to ‘chuck us out of the car’. We laughed. He was a nice bloke.

I dropped the kid off at the Country Music Hall of Fame Museum. I've been before and thought I'd spent time blogging while she soaked up the cowboy boots, hats, tassels and guitars. She checked out RCA Studio B and then we both went through the famous Ryman Museum.  This got her all excited and well briefed for the big night ahead - we're going to the Garnd Ole Opry to see a show. I'll continue the adventure next time as this is enough of a read for now. Here's us rocking it on stage at the Ryman Auditorium in preparation.

One fat pumpkin !!

Pick your shit-spice ;)