Oxford, Quickly

High StreetSaturday, we are picked up by Lushi in the long BMW for the hour-plus drive to Oxford, where we have booked in for three days at the Old Bank Hotel in the High Street. It's a little tricky the last few blocks, as the High Street is forbidden to vehicles save deliveries and local taxis during the day. We find a six-mile detour that cuts into the back of the hotel just before the other end of the street closing, and check into a lovely room overlooking High Street, Oxford Colleges, and the medeival edifice of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin. We set out in the drizzle to wander a few blocks of back alleys to arrive at the Bear Inn, the oldest pub in Oxford, dating to the 1200's. Low dark beamed ceilings, a smokey stone fireplace and taps featuring Fuller's London Pride and ESB, a pint of which goes down well. We wander Oxford for a bit, and then head back in the rain for a cocktail at the Quod bar, followed by a nap in our luxurious room.

At five, we break out our Elume-brand Covid home tests, for which we've set up monitored online appointments (someone in I'm guessing the Phillipines watches by phone camera to see that you swab properly) and them the test fluid goes into a small device connected to phone by bluetooth. The monitor hangs up, and the results will be ready in 15 minutes. We are absolutely gob-smacked when the results come back POSITIVE!! After a few minutes of shock, we call for the manager, who tells us on the phone that by current UK rules we must isolate in the hotel room for TEN DAYS. He says they'll do everything they can for us, include getting some additional tests first thing Monday.

Old Bank HotelWe send to the Whiskey Shop across the road for a delivery of scotch, rum and vodka to help keep the prices down a small bit, and order room service from dinner. We go to bed wondering what the heck will happen. Sunday brings the Sunday Times and FT - enough reading for hours. We read, order room service lunch, and try for hours to get Netflix to work somehow on the room TV. No luck. Not a bad day of relaxing, but nine more?

Monday morning Dove the manager sends up two covid home tests (not monitered, and no good for getting on a plane and re-entering the US. They turn out negative, however, so we begin searching for a clinic where we can go and get official tests complete with Fit to Fly certs. By four pm we've done the tests, and in 20 Radcliff Observatoryminutes have results by phone that confirm negative and contain link to get and print the FTF. Free, we wander around taking in the sights of Oxford for a couple of hours, and book our last dinner in Oxford and of the trip.

10 Ship Street is a cozy local-award winning restaurant tucked away in a small street between colleges. The provide a tasty martini while we browse the eclectic and interesting menu. Another favorite of Troy's is on the menu—devilled kidneys with mustard, which she follows up with dry-aged pork belly, for the rich dinner award. I go lighter with tempura courgette flower, and then a lovely grilled Brixham plaice accompanied by sea beans. We pair all with a delicious bottle of a different Langhe Nebbiolo.

We will head to the airport for our scheduled flight home first thing in the morning, so our three-day visit to Oxford has amounted to one pub beer, three hours of Oxford sightseeing, one lovely dinner, and an almost 2,000 pound hotel bill.

Afterword:

We arrived home to an email that good friends had also just returned from England, and had had the same results with Elume test kits. We both received an email from Elume a day later indicating that the kits we had had been declared defective. No offer of repayment or compensation, no note of apology. Avoid that brand.

Bodleian LibraryBridge of Sighs

ST. Mary the VirginSchool ties at the Bear Inn

El Arrayán

About a half-hour trek from our rented condo overlooking Playa Los Muertos sits an authentic, small local restaurant in the backwaters of Puerta Vallarta called El Arrayán, where we settle in to enjoy a wonderful traditional meal of local dishes.

A simple whitewashed space decorated with primitive art, there are colorful oilcloth covered tables dotted around and in an open courtyard in the middle which sits an Arrayán tree, also known as guayabillo. The tree botanically is luma apiculata and produces small round yellow fruits, used in some Mexican dishes, and lovely creamy white five-petalled blossoms. It grows natively in this region of Jalisco, as well as other parts of Mexico and Central America.

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Panama Canal Transit

December, 2019

From the observation lounge of the1920's oil painting Miraflores Locks Star Pride, we marvel at a string-of-pearls of lights against the dark sea horizon twinkles from a dozen and a half ships in the near distance, lined up to wait their turn the next day to enter and transit the Panama Canal. On a previous jaunt to Panama City, we had seen the Miraflores locks, sited at the western end of the canal, from afar on the public viewing platform. Now we will have a chance to experience the entire length of the canal as the Windstar ship approaches the lowest lock from Balboa Harbor and prepares to enter.

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Canopy Zipline

With the ship Star Pride anchored off of Quepos on the western coastline of Costa Rica, we Zodiac onto shore and bus ten minutes into the tropical rainforest just north of Manuel Antonio National Park to embark on our first ever ZipLine experience. Each member of the group of about 30 from the ship, from pre-teens to oldsters like us, is outfitted with snugly tensioned step-in thigh and waist harnesses, heavy leather gloves and helmets. Each harness has a giant caribiner attached to the front, and a pulley wheel assembly attached to that. We walk uphill, sounding like a manacled chain-gang with clanging hardware, and clamber up a few dozen steps spiraling around a large tree to the platform at the top.

This zipline system comprises 22 platforms, each attached ecologically with a tension system not requiring any invasive drilling into the wood, and 12 different zipline steel cables, which we will descend one after the other, interspersed with some uphill climbs and tower stairs to gain altitude.

As our turn comes, the guide first hangs the pulley assembly hung over the cable and then re-attaches it to the central carabiner on the rider. One then hangs in a sitting position with legs crossed, left hand on the harness in front, and right hand loosely hung over the cable behind and above. This hand is not so much a brake, as a rudder, since small pressure on either side keeps you straight, rather than twisting around. The guide shouts “GO!” and you step off into space, and are zipping along through the canopy top at 35 plus miles per hour very quickly. And very cool!

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Bar Nestor

Bar Nestor is a San Sebastián phenomenon. A tiny old space on Arrandegi Kalea in the heart of the parte vieja, it attracts locals and visitors from afar, not for pintxos, but for a super limited menu of jamon, chorizo, cheese, and the main event—huge chops of chuleton de vaca vieja. Thick, caveman-sized rib steaks cut from old cows, accompanied by chopped tomatoes in salt and olive oil, and fried pimientos de Guernica. In addition, they do two, only, tortilla Espanolas per day—one at 1 pm and one at 8 pm, each providing a couple dozen portions. Their card indicates the place is “simpatico and amabilidad”—a friendly, welcoming place—and it’s most accurate.

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San Sebastián Update

An hour from Bilbao airport, the taxi arrives in Sebastián  and drops us at Legazpi Doce Suites, a small suites  hotel just outside the old quarter. Legazpi offers a well located—and priced—option to call home during an update visit to Donostia, as  San Sebastián is called in the local Basque language. We have 402, a one-bedroom corner suite with two balconies, one opening onto Gipuzkoa park with a distant view of the bay. Well-furnished, great bathroom, tiny efficiency kitchen and food-themed photos covering the walls. We’re a block from the parte viejo, whose winding medieval streets house so many great restaurants and pintxos bars. And so we commence four days of relaxing, wandering and sampling the wares of one of the world’s food capitals. There are said to be more Michelin stars in this town than any other—18 in total—with famous names such as Arzak, Mugaritz, Akelarre, Berasatagui, Kokotxa and more. But this visit is not about fancy, expensive, three-hour molecular gastronomy. San Sebastián for us is pintxos bars and local food. We were last here five years ago, and it’s time for an update.

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The Great River Race

On a short unplanned stopover in London, we discover ourselvesA at the crest of the Chelsea Bridge squinting up the River Thames into the distance. While looking around Google maps, I had noticed a thick dotted blue line in the middle of the River, and discovered that this clear, sunny September Saturday was the date for the annual Great River Race.....a spectacular 21.6 mile rowing race sometimes billed as London’s other marathon.

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Pan Asian in Puerto Vallarta

I doubt that many tourists think in an Asian cuisine direction while beaching in the sun—but then again, there isn’t that much of it available in Puerto Vallarta.

When introducing herself to readers in early 2019, the new SF Chronicle restaurant critic, Soleil Ho tells of having recently opened, with her mother, a small eatery in the hills above PV centered on Vietnamese and other Asian small plates: Bonito Kitchen. The name was chosen, according to Ho, “because it both means  ‘beautiful’ in Spanish, and is the name of one of the most important fish in Japanese cuisine.”

When we find ourselves on a short break from NorCal rain and gloomy cloud—to Puerto Vallarta—that April, naturally we have to check it out. A 15-minute cab ride up and over the top, Bonito is situated in the outlying Jardines de las Gaviotas neighborhood above the center of town, in a low nondescript building. There is seating for maybe 18 diners inside, and another 16 or so on an adjacent terrace covered in bougainvillea and trumpet vine. A sort of free standing shack at the corner of the terrace houses the bar.

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