Thankfully, niceties outdated in the States rule here as do beautiful wrappings and neatnik pleasantries. Where else would Subway wrap your Diet Coke in a taped paper bag and stores happily cover the smallest purchase in the prettiest of bags and laminate to protect against the rain? Brilliant. Each neighborhood has a unique feel: buttoned up Mitsukoshiomae, tony Omote-sando, neon-soaked Roppongi with discount powerhouse Don Quiote and the trendy girls after my own heart in Harajuku. But regardless of your landing pad, one feels valued here, honored, special, a member of an ordered and respected society: something that no amount of encounters with disinterested gum-popping salesgirls or agitated commuters in America can conjure up. Long live Tokyo. In the land of the Emperor lies hope for civilized society AND civilization.

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Where to start? Let’s dig in at the Tameike-sanno beginning. My journey to the island began with a bang as they say, or more specifically, an ouch! During a grueling flight, I consumed my weight in therapeutic cranapple juice and obtained a personal best in lavoratory passes that is 25 trips to the littlest girl room this side of the date line in a mere 14 hours. UTIs it would seem, know no geographic boundaries and provide for great anxious hand-wringing when one needs uber-drugs upon disembarkment and can’t speak a lick of Samurai. Luckily, just as a blobby pink figure in a dress is the ubiquitous woman’s potty symbol, so to, is pointing to your pelvic bits and frowning, the sign for girlie plumbing distress. To wit, the lucky nurse speaking one word of English ‘Pain’ was a willing audience for the symptomatic pantomime show I put on upon my arrival.

Treating my condition was a real case study for the unheralded efficiency and hospitality of the Orient. Immediately after my steps off the plane in Narita, a full-service health clinic and six airport volunteers offering me directions quickly came into view. Who says service with a smile is dead? Important note: in Japan, it just comes with a paper sick mask. I was so shocked at all this Miss Manners civility and pre-occupied with my ailment that I nearly missed my friend Tetsuo (Ted) dutifully waiting for me as I passed through customs. Ted is a true cultural hybrid, growing up in Western Japan, and spending stints in Tokyo, Palo Alto and DC. In keeping with Japanese tradition, he showed me one heck of a Shogun good time. This included a trip to the hailed Edo Museum and a 14-course vegetarian traditional Buddist monk feast.

I can not extend high enough praise to the restaurant Bon. If I were Japanese, I’d give it twenty bows. Featuring individual rooms for each supping group with bamboo and native woods aplenty, this is a culinary zen paradise complete with wheat, soba and tofu in every imaginable genre, including almond flavored, gelatinized treats. As an added bonus of seasonable bounty, I consumed cherry blossoms in at least four distinct forms: leaf wraps, tea base, tempura temptation and in the Japanese equivalent of the veggie burrito. Good thing these tasty delights bring luck. Otherwise, I’d have a bright pink-tinged tongue for nothing. I’ve learned something about eating yummy nuggets across the ocean. There is seemingly no limit to the fortune that can come from consuming it. Food really is worth its weight in gold..flecks that is, which grace virtually every dessert. Precious metals it seems and sucking, instead of biting your sugar candies pleases the Gods. Did I mention that our din-din included two other special guests, an IT guru and a professorial transgenderism expert? This along with the explanation of all of our consumables led to one savory time at Bon. I’ll leave you to chew on our menu of 17th century soup and Sen Cha while heralding my chomp-chomp bravery. Meantime, stay tuned for our next installment when TLRG takes on the Tokyo transit system!

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Historians say that Gaius Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon into Rome, his “casting of the die” as he so famously called it, not only changed the course of the Republic, it transformed the face of civilization as we know it. How can we have that kind of courage and employ it? Why are we so afraid to cast the die? A recent trip to the Eternal City got me to thinking about these issues and the wisdom of the ancients. When you see an 1800 year-old column before you, your perspective on your existence is immediately and forever transformed. I am still making sense of the resulting changes in me and determining what it is “I know for sure.” There are three things of which I am most positive…the beauty of a Senatorial robe cast in stone, the lick-your-lips goodness of gelato and the romance that can be had in the night-time shadows of the Trajanian ruins. The rest is TBD:pigtails:

Long Live the Republic (Or is it the Empire?),
TLRG

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My most profound takeaway from the Trans-Euro e-Health Summit is that “global community” is not just hip jargon used to sell Coca Cola Light to our neighbors in Kuala Lumpur. The concept of a borderless world, knitted together tighter than a Norwegian ski cap is real and it’s now. This is evidenced by the fact that I was phalanxed by no less than four countries at all times during my many meeting sessions. HIT peeps from Sweden, Bulgaria, Belgium, Switzerland, Scotland and Greece were my most frequent seatmates. They taught me quite a bit and I’m not talking about eHR installation and the promise of patient data mobility. I got the opportunity most Americans do not: to leave our mirror, mirror on the wall, weâ€re the greatest of them all culture and journey to a universe where being from the Land of Uncle Sam causes no great excitement and in fact, can even be a liability. Talk about working a tough room!

Warning: These colors donâ€t bleed but they just may scrape on contact. A number of people grabbed a peek at my nametag and wondered aloud with great perplexity why someone from the US was even at the event. At least I had a cohort in conference ribbing seeing as the event host (one Norway) is not as of yet an EU member, having given a thumbs-down in both the 70’s and 90’s. Ahem. All of this grushting is not to say I wasn’t greeted warmly by many delegates after turning on my 400-watt charm (uber props to my new Swede St. Olav friends in the rural North and the fantastic Karl Jurgen Schmidt from Deutcheland! Wouldnâ€t dream of walking the Artic Cathedral towbridge path and discussing cross-border telemedicine with anyone else. For him, I will be sure to learn how to say You Rock! in German:redhead:)

Despite a few bumps for me on the formerly unchartered road of global diplomacy, this conference was a valuable indoctrination into a new work and personal climate. I learned that there is a whole world outside my Beltway window and that the Financial Times, not just the New York Times, should be read every day for proper world perspective, Bertoscolini-watch and the updated scorecard for ratification of the EU constitution . Drats! And here I thought the Economist and the Scotsman made me continental enough. Looks as if Iâ€ll have to add a 596th newspaper to my morning must-review Internet feeds.:mrgreen:

Thanks to my new compatriots for enlightening my world view and for not discarding me straightaway because of my Made in the USA label. Should you ever find yourself in America, Iâ€ll be sure to take you to Steak and Shake and out to our biggest stadium movieplex. Popcorn’s on me! Until then, Iâ€ll see you next year in sunny, sandy Seville.

Humbly in Your Debt, (And ever grateful you introduced me to Italian frocks, Scandinavian cloudberries, Belgian chocolates and Artic moosefur)
TLRG

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While filled with glee over the prospect of exploring this tundriatic, fiord-filled playground before me, I have to wonder why, in the name of Eric the Red, the European Union would pick one of the Northernmost habitats on earth for their annual e-Health junket. Tromsoâ€s panoramic Alpine views and reputation as the Land of the Midnight Sun just might have cinched their bid over sandier, more continental locales. Given its unique geographic seat at the virtual top of the world, Tromso is blessed with nearly three months of pure, uninterrupted solar and UV rays every summer. All hail melanoma! And as the tourism website says, simply put Tromso parties; complete with a mayor who dons a shiny discoball of a necklace in ALL public addresses and yodelers who sing lâ€etrange electronica Euro hits like Big Butter Belly. Run donâ€t walk to download Bel Cantorâ€s CD! I guarantee you will find no another band like Bel Cantor and no other land like Tromso on this Earth. Where else are Kit-Kats called Kvikk Lunsj and is whale watching, fur slipper-making and singing the praises of Ibsen, Grieg and mid-20th century modernism a regional pass-time? How many adventure outposts, population 56,000, can play host to top health ministers and the worldâ€s best marathoners one month and Nelson Mandela the next?

As the luggagecheckers at the airport warned me upon entry to Norway, Uh, Miss this is NOT Washington DC; which became hilariously clear as I traipsed through Tromdenhiemâ€s masterfully designed Museum of Polar Exploration seeing the likes of Svarlsbadâ€s little auks (penguins) and trained bearded seals barking for their dinner, as well as learning about the migratory mating patterns of Artic eels and the eco-consequences of being downwind from the Chernobyl disaster. Note to self: check that Rusky globe again. Exit information on the miraculous Coldwar Antartica Treaty cooperation and a giftshop brimming with funky Norse scarfwear and authentic fur polarbear masks topped off the museumâ€s icecold good time. I am sure I speak for many a TLRG reader when I say that seeing Mr. Q in his newly acquired bear hoodie and costume will be worth its weight in Kroners (6,000 to be exact)

Stay tuned for the Flickr photos:pigtails:

Signed,
LMSB (Lil Miss Sunburn)

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While the Piazzo’s choco muffins may be dry as the Sahara, it’s good to know that there are some places left on our fair planet that put real, honest to goodness sucre and creme in their coffee drinks. Equal and soy milk be damned. I’m certain my beloved Mr. Q would agree. Mmm…mmm…God bless the (post-Weimar)Republic!

Jumping from bean consumption to my emotional state, I admit to being a bit weepy this morning as I touched down in Deutchland. You see, this little farmgirl has dreamed since she was a wee frauline of coming to the Rhineland one day and excitedly walking village to village, amongst those quaint little churches nestled in the mountains. Well, dream may be an understatement; actually looking at pictures of these villages no more than twice a day with intense pastoral longing might be more accurate. Today, on my way towards the Artic Circle, the EU Health Ministers Summit and the land of the northernmost Burger King on Earth, my girlhood longings became reality. Snow-capped mountains, gorgeous, antiquated vert plots of land and the beacon-like steeple of a model village worhsiphouse seen so many times in my worldy, wanderlust dreams came into crystal clear view upon airport approach. I’m getting downright misty just thinking about it now. I feel a sense of homecoming here and not just because all the older ladies scadding about look just like my Grammy Alice Gerber!

The cumulative effect of my journey across the pond thus far drives a disputive nail right into the theory that as we get older, we have less magical moments of discovery; you know, when eyes pop wide out of your head and life seems to stop cold for a moment so that all you can hear is the beating of your own heart and the anticipation of an entirely new experience? Most of my friends are far beyond these days with glee found in getting a ritzy thumbs-up from the home appraiser, cultivating a backyard garden and thinking of children to come. God bless ’em! Me, I feel like my a-ha, life-expanding moments are only multiplying in the most glorious way, like a beautiful chorus, collective voice rising higher and higher. These interludes are also requiring me to speak many, many more languages. I’m a very lucky woman. All of these dramatic professional and personal developments have me so overwhelmed at times, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. So instead, I’m keeping my mind off of emoting and am instead chomping on Munchen’s version of the hotdog. Not exactly Oscar Meyer tasty. But, I must keep up my quest to consume questionable pork in every EU country, come what may.

The only thing negative I have to say about Germany thus far is the native children are a tad too energetic. I had a wonderkid next to me on my flight that jabbered in his native speak all the way from IAD to the land of the ’72 Olympics (with the exception, of course, of the internationally-recognized phrase playstation which he uttered every 15 minutes.) Aye! Never have I been so inclined towards Kindsmord and glad to blast the in-flight collection of pop music courteously provided to us by the soundboard mixers of Starbucks. Bucks really is taking over the world one frap flavor and remastered Sinatra ditty at a time.

And speaking of the bean, I must get back to my cup of creme and mocha. But never fear. You have much to look forward to in this week’s roving reports from the Northern front, as I excitedly head to the land of the Vikings, reindeer and the midnight sun.

Auf Wiedersein Lieblings,
TLRG

And to my Charlie B I say Mein herz schl’gt nur dich mein schatz der liebste!

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Let me start by saying that Branson is a lot like Vegas only with more cowboy boot outposts and a communist country’s worth of neon backlit theatres dedicated to B-List stars who you thought were long dead, like Mickey Rooney and Andy Williams. Where else can you hear an aging impresario performing impressive vocal imitations of Scotch-swilling Rat Pack favorites like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett and 70’s elevator music rock stars like Inglebert Humperdink? And just as a point of order and oddity, I must observe that you know you’re in a throw-back to the past kind of town when the words DSL and elliptical trainer are foreign to the natives.

I fulfilled one of my life’s dreams while in Branson which is to get this ol’ cowgirl a pair of riding boots. Not to be braggadocious but I’ve got a prime pair of Justins that have already been used by yours truly in the “saddle”, if you catch my California king hotel bed and sullied linen drift.:) Gidee-up, ride’em cowboy. Oh and ignore all calls from the hotel desk to control the hootin’ and hollerin’.

Other trip landmarks of note were the copious Amish furniture stores littered on the paved wagon route from Branson to KC, home of Robert Altman and in scary proximity to that security guard cum ladykiller BTK. And of course we can not overlook the only place in our great nation where you can get a slab of cow with cheese, mayo and peanutbutter — Sedalia, MO. Nothing induces culinary happiness and IBS like the famed, pre-McCarthy era Guberburger. If the Planters peanut man had a scuzzy, charming bachelor pad that churned out sizzlin’ funions and beef all the live long day, this place would be it.

From food to frocks, I, TLRG, am a roving hipster reporter that brings it all to you, sort of the anti-Stone Phillips. To that end, I relay that my long plane journies to the Heartland and fro have provided ample time to pursue the spring fashion mags like Vogue and Elle. While I frown at the reintroduction of peasant skirts and 80’s neon plastic bracelet ala Debbie Gibson, I have to tell my readers that the Prada 2005 Spring collection is postively to DIE FOR including must have tri-color wood wedge shoes and a 40’s looking bakelite watch that I just might sell all my plasma to purchase. And while I’m in the confessional, I will reveal my uber splurge purchase this month which I am thoroughly enjoying. Are you ready? Big-rimmed Gucci sunglasses. I feel like a real Beltway bandit NOW! What’s next? The Hermes Birkin briefcase?:mrgreen:

Moving on to the world of film, did y’all get to see the Oscars? Actress Hilary Swank looked stately and statute-worthy in her clingy number and Brit actor Clive Owen followed suit in an extra yummy tux. Leo DiCaprio on the other hand and his once dimply youthfulness has turned into something resembling a puffy Krispy Kreme donut coming off the assembly line. As that girly proverb goes, it’s true nothing scrumdillicious lasts forever. Good thing he has Brazilian armcandy to up his hot quotient, si?

I must bring this meandering blog to a close as my jetlagged eyes are about as red as my dress. Know though that I give two ranchhand thumbs up to the world of Branson and urge you to check it out, preferably when the go-cart tracks and Jim Stafford crooning is in full swing. It’s a whole country music hall’s worth of good ol’ fun! As I ride off into the sunset, grace me with your thoughts, will you pardner?

Itchin to Get a Cowgirl Leg Up,
TLRG :redhead:

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London to me is: Hyde Park at sunset with horses a prancin’, Cleopatra’s towering obelisk, Parliament’s no bigger than a washcloset bookstore, the bargain basement pashmina stands of Portobello Row, the copious 3X war armors of Henry VIII, beans for breakfast and hard cider for lunch, Dicken’s perch, the rice-laden coleslaw of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, Liberty…Liberty…Liberty…the world’s best department store, the Christmas lights of Carnaby Street, in-hotel radiator heat, sumptuous castles and tapestries a’ plenty, Evensong at Westminster, the ominous Tower of London moat (dry as it may now be), Wellington’s statue, the awe-inspiring ornamentation of Big Ben, the calming rush of the river Thames, beautiful tree trunks the size of a post On the Waterfront Brando, William the Conqueror’s many feats of fiefdom architecture, Cadbury in-tube station treats, towering cathedrals older than ER I AND more beautiful than Jemima Khan, strolling amongst the falling leaves arm in arm with my loving guide and spying the Eye a’ twinkle in the brisk night air.

These are the visions I shall hold fast to in my heart and mind…until and only until British Airways runs a special and I can hop across the pond once more. Perhaps next month? Send a lass to Windsor Castle summer camp anyone? Continuing education in the form of Tate Modern photog classes? A girl must hold fast to her bread pudding and Parliamentary dreams…

Signed Wistful for a Spot of Afternoon Tea,:pigtails:
TLRG

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Of all the tales gruesome tales told by broguishly theatrical tour guides, that of the Burke and Hare duo takes the Dunkirk cake. Lacking all morals and hygiene, these partners in crime estinguished the life of 18 people by sticking their fingers in the nasal cavities of unsuspecting victims and slowly suffocating them to death, only to sell their corpses for a hefty 10 pounds to Dr. Knox’s flourishing University dissection shop in the heart of medical district. Religious strife and the sardine-like tenement crowding caused by unimaginable poverty led to other horrific catastrophes in which thousands upon thousands of Edinburgh’s people died. Lucky for me (ahem), I have a BF who fancies dark, dank, drippy dungeons so we got to see a good sampling of these reknowed death destinations. I must confess to legs a’quaking in the mud and a face palour of Victorian white. Despite the spookiness factor, I can proudly say that I am one of the few (with the exception of the Ghostbusters) to pro-actively seek out the paranormal in Edinburgh’s tremulous graveyards and in the infamous Coventar’s Prison. .. To boldly go where many a scratching, bruising poltergeist HAS gone before. Yikes! Come to think of it, I’d better wash that haunted cemetery mud off my boots just to be safe.

Reporting Live From the Musty Depths of Scotland’s Past,
TLRL

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For reader amusement and edification, I share a few of my favorite Tartanic turns of phrase including “jobbie” (a nice word for poo), “guardee loo” (an 18th century warning sounded just as rubbish and human waste disposal are about to fall on one’s head from the windowseal above) and “Cheers!”, not just a pub at which everybody knows your name but also the salutation chirped whenever you enter or leave a shop. Traveler’s hint: Pubkeeper gaiety and a hearty Cheers! are ensured with the purchase of at least one hard cider pint…aye…or so I’ve heard.

In the Name of Lonlitgow and Berwick Upon Tweed, :doggy:
TLRL

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