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Category Archives: Entertainment

Honeymoon Redux: Symi Revisited

24 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by WS50 in Entertainment, Travel

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Anniversary, AnniversarySymi, Greece, honeymoon, Honneymoon, Symi

BBQ. Sesklia Island with Wendy, Stephen, Guido and Anna.

BBQ. Sesklia Island with Wendy, Stephen, Guido and Anna.

BY JULIE SEYLER

Steve and I had a perfect two weeks in Greece for all the usual reasons one loves vacation: we lived a life different than the one we live in. We ate out for every meal; we had a different adventure every day; we saw breathtaking landscapes on an hour to hour basis; and we connected with strangers simply because they were away from home at the same time we were. Sometimes the connection is so easy and familiar, you end up feeling as if you’d been friends with these strangers all of your life.

On the day we refer to as “The Poseidon Adventure”, Steve and I sat down at a picnic table with Wendy and Stephen from England and Guido and Anna from Italy. We drank wine and ate home cooked barbecue and watched the goats and embarked on a lively discussion of the Donald Disaster. These Europeans, as well as every other person we spoke to Greece, were shocked so many Americans find him appealing. After lunch we reboarded the boat for more swimming in the perfect water around the island and at the end of the day email addresses were exchanged. This led to a flurry of emails between Wendy and me on the virtues of Symi. I asked her if she would write a blog for WS50 and she graciously agreed. Our experiences in Symi were different but our feelings were identical: pure love for this magical speck in the Aegean Sea.

This is Wendy’s adventures in Symi.
**************************************************************

BY WENDY ATKINS

stephen-and-wendy

Being romantic types, and appreciating any opportunity for adult-only travel, my husband I embarked on a return trip to the beautiful Dodecanese island of Symi in September this year. We married ten years ago on September 23rd 2006 and spent an idyllic and mainly horizontal ten days there to celebrate the nuptials. Spring clean your suggestive mind, our horizontal posture was caused by nothing more than the sheer exhaustion from organising and taking starring roles in what felt like a view-of-symi-1

Don’t get me wrong, we love our lives in the United Kingdom, but as busy people with multiple occupations, (I am a budding stained glass artist and foster carer, caring, until recently for three teenagers; Stephen is a mooring hand at the port of Dover and a plumber and heating engineer), we value our time alone and Symi is the ideal place to relish that time.

Back in 2006, when my husband Stephen and I travelled on a package tour to Symi, the journey to our honeymoon island was relatively stress free. The easiest route from the UK to the island is by air from London Gatwick airport to Rhodes and then a 90-minute ferry to Symi. On a package tour the worries of transport between airport and port and any difficulties with transport or accommodation are borne by someone else and this is often enticing. However, on this occasion we took the plunge and travelled independently. We are not entirely new to this, having travelled independently extensively throughout Europe and having visited China, Thailand, and the Maldives in recent years.

So this year we booked our own flights, arranged ferry tickets and accommodation on Symi and the trip there was fairly lengthy for a trip within Europe. We flew from London Gatwick airport at 9am and arrived in our Symi penthouse (sic) around 10 hours later, tired from the trip, exhausted by the slog up the steps and hills to our apartment but absolutely elated by the night time view of Yialos (the harbour) from the dizzy heights of Chorio (the village).

img_0579

The next morning we awoke to the reality of Greek accommodation, which is basic to say the least. In the haze of the last ten years we had forgotten about the “no flushing of toilet paper down the loo” rule and the bucket in the shower to water the plants (water being a precious commodity) and the concrete hard bed. However, all that faded when we flung back the blinds and the full beauty of this striking island hit us right between the eyes and we found ourselves in possibly the most stunning place in Greece…..again!

img_0516

We were blessed with ten days on Symi and spent our time exploring far more than we did ten years ago…. Probably because of aforementioned exhaustion and general blissful, loving happiness. Some highlights and absolute must-do’s:

img_0554

Hire a moped – if you have never ridden one, even better. Riding across the island from Yialos, where you may hire one, to Panormitis which is a monastery at the farthest side of the island is an absolute must-do. The hair-pin bends and sheer drops with no railings are a cheaper, longer and far more thrilling ride than any fairground can provide.
For a more `genuine’ Symi experience stay in Chorio, rather than the more touristic Yialos. If you can get past the desire for fluffy towels and turned down bedding in the evening, then living in a `down’ apartment i.e. the room at the bottom of a large Symi village house, then you will experience more of what it is like to live like a local. That said, anyone with mobility difficulties will struggle living in the village with the many hills and steps.

The Poseidon Adventure

The Poseidon Adventure

Take a boat trip around the island early in your trip – you will then see all of the beautiful little coves and beaches and select those that draw you most, to revisit. When selecting your beach do try to visit one with resident goats. No Symi experience is complete until you have grappled with a goat which insists on eating the contents of your beach bag. Take bets on who wins the battle, amongst your fellow beach dwellers, just to increase the fun.

Ride the bus – if you didn’t get enough of a thrill from the moped ride, then the bus will finish you off. On more than one occasion I was working out my exit from a window in the bus, should we actually topple into the harbour. Truly, the width of the road around the harbour barely fits a moped, let alone a bus.

Climb as high as you can, as high as your lungs will carry you, up the Kalli Strata to see the epic views of Chorio, Yialos and Pedi beach. You will not regret it. If you are lucky you will pass Dead Goat Alley, although hopefully the goat will be a thing of the past by then.

img_0537Eat, eat, eat, then eat some more. The food on Symi is a wonder to behold. It is mainly simple and mainly locally caught but it is also mainly fresh and mainly plentiful. It is difficult to recommend a good restaurant because we didn’t manage to find a poor one. From the `posh’ restaurants in the harbour, designed to draw the wealthier yachting clientele, to the takeaway kebab shop on the Kalli Strata in Chorio, we ate like Kings and Queens. We had the most stunning prawn risotto on the beach at Marathounda beach, an amazing Moussaka at Zoe’s Taverna, mouth-watering casseroled calamari and melt in the mouth lamb at the Windmill restaurant in Chorio (well worth a second visit), where we spent our 10th anniversary evening.

So, our ten-year-old and rose tinted view of Symi remains intact after our return visit. The island has hardly changed in that time and for that it is precious indeed. Will we return? We spoke to lots of people who return year on year and sometimes several times a year. We aren’t ruling out a return visit, but the world is such a big place and we are adding places to our bucket list faster than we are crossing them off so….. watch this space….. perhaps we will celebrate our 20th anniversary there. Next time we may need to stay in Yialos, far fewer steps!

What started it all 10 years ago.

What started it all 10 years ago.

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Happy New Year

31 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by WS50 in Entertainment

≈ 2 Comments

image

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The Painted Bunting in Prospect Park, Brooklyn

14 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by WS50 in Entertainment

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Tags

Birding, Prospect Park, The painted bunting

Painted Bunting in Prospect Park

I missed its head, but nailed the body.

BY JULIE SEYLER

On a spring morning in December I trekked out to Prospect Park in Brooklyn to find the painted bunting. Never ever would I have been able to espy this bird on my own, but with the assistance of my birder buddy, and many others curious about the unusual and rare presence of this Florida-based bird in the New York metropolitan area, we located its general whereabouts. It was hanging in a brown patch of weeds by the skating rink, not waiting for its close-up. Rather it was being coy, hiding itself deep within the withered branches and brambles of a roped off fen. But birders are expansive people, they want you to share in the joy of a sighting. The guy crouching next to me with his super telephoto camera lens patiently explained that I needed to find the stump, look halfway up just below the white flowers at 2:00 and I would see a patch of blue. I followed his directions and voila there it was. So satisfying! Then it was time for the next activity, brunch and a well-earned Bloody Mary.

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Detroit was a Hit!

06 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by WS50 in Art, Entertainment, Travel

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Clifford Bell's. Coney Island Hot Dogs, Detroit, Detroit institute of Art, Diego Rivera, Guardian Building, Penobscot Building, Slo's Barbecue

Hitsville USA Detroit. 2.28.15

Hitsville USA Detroit. 2.28.15

BY JULIE SEYLER

Exactly four months before the wedding day, Lois and I boarded a plane to Detroit, Michigan. Despite being repeatedly peppered with “Who goes to Detroit?” and “Why go to Detroit?” and “You are going to Detroit, in the dead of winter? We never wavered. Detroit beckoned.

We knew this was the perfect trip, and I say this even though we were stranded in the Detroit airport for 8 hours and ended up having to overnight, un-comped, at the Westin Hotel due to a nor’easter. No matter, we went swimming in our underwear while the storm raged on.

After a swim at the Westin at the Detroit Airport. 3.1.15

After a swim at the Westin at the Detroit Airport. 3.1.15

And we met lots of interesting people because endless hours at an airport leads to bonding amongst strangers. But prior thereto, Detroit packed a wallop.

There is so much to see and do. Saturday morning we had a Coney Island Chili Dog at American Coney Island.

Breakfast of champions.

Breakfast of champions.

The waiter had no idea that there was an actual place called Coney Island which put hot dogs on the map.

We walked down Woodward Avenue studded with grand old 19th century churches past the stadium that houses the Detroit Tigers and into the The Detroit Institute of Arts. A keen kin to the National Gallery of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I discovered Pieter Brueghel the Elder’s “The Wedding Dance,” painted in 1566. It was a harbinger of my June nuptials and screamed a wedding is a party where lust and love are offered and accepted in the most bawdy of fashion.

The Wedding Dance. 1566

The Wedding Dance. 1566

We also got a chance to see Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry murals. They were a motivating reason to come to Detroit because the murals he had planned for Rockefeller Center were felled by public outcry. But in Detroit, we had an opportunity to see the intact in situ Detroit Industry murals, a visual panorama of the pros and cons of industry, where both management and workers are represented.

Detroit Industry

P1300030

After a delicious lunch and a thorough scouring of the museum shop, we taxied over to the house where Berry Gordy founded Motown.

 

 

I found the Motown tour a little thin, but it was totally cool to see the recording studio where the Temptations, Supremes, Four Tops, Stevie Wonder etc. congregated and made gold records.

We had cocktail hour at a 1930’s speakeasy — Cliff Bell’s — and barbecue at Slow’s. And defnitely one needs an Uber app to trek around Detroit at night.

On Sunday, we were heading out at 12:00 for our 2:00 flight back to Newark, but we had heard that the Guardian Building is a must see architectural gem. It’s one of many skyscrapers that epitomize Detroit’s status as a leader of commerce and instury at the beginning of the 20th century. It’s where the automobile was born.

The Guardian was built by Wirt C. Rowland and its purpose was to celebrate the world of finance. It’s open for viewing every day and it’s free. It was worth the trip to Detroit. And for those who stand in awe of the Chrysler building, which is fabulous, the Guardian Building has a bit more over the top deco-ishness.

Interior of the Guardian Building.

Interior of the Guardian Building.

One of 5 remaining original Tiffany clocks inside the Guardian Building.

One of 5 remaining original Tiffany clocks inside the Guardian Building.

We capped the morning with scrambled eggs and bloodies at The Dime Store and were on our way to the airport right on schedule where the weather intervened.

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‘Relationship’ with Computer Fraught with the Artificial

20 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by WS50 in Concepts, Entertainment, Men, Opinion

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Black Mirror, Frank Terranella, Her, Joaquin Phoenix, Netflix, Scarlett Johansson, Spike Jonze, The Twilight Zone

Me and my gal.

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

The upside of Netflix being shut out by movie studios from streaming new Hollywood movies is that they have had to look high and low for content. The low has been some putrid indie films. The high has been some great British television. An example of the best is a British television series called “Black Mirror.” There are only six episodes available, but they are well worth your time.

Black Mirror has been described as an anthology series like The Twilight Zone, and it does have some similarities in that each episode is thought-provoking and often deals in moral or ethical issues. It’s set in the near future and technology plays an important role in each episode. For example, there is an episode called “The Entire History of You” that envisions a time where we all have video recorders attached to our eyes and implanted in our heads. This allows us to play back everything we experience at will on nearby television screens. While this instantly settles disputes about what people said, it also causes lots of problems. For example, the question “where were you last night?” is not simply answered by words any longer. Now we go to the videotape to actually see what you saw last night. It’s an intriguing concept and one bound to improve honesty. But a young couple with trust issues finds the pitfalls of having all this “evidence” to dwell on.

Another episode that really struck me was one called “Be Right Back” in which a man tells his wife he’s just going out and will be right back, but then gets killed in an auto accident. At the funeral, a friend tells the widow that there is a service available that takes all of a person’s online activity (pictures, emails, tweets, etc.) and creates a humanoid in that person’s form that has that person’s personality including memories, vocabulary and sense of humor. She urges the widow to simply re-create her husband from his online persona. After some initial misgivings, she agrees. The humanoid arrives and is indistinguishable from her husband and has all his online memories. But there are problems in any human-humanoid relationship and the episode shows them and how they are resolved. The episode seeks to explore the question whether a person is really just the sum of his online communications. By the way, the widow is played by Hayley Atwell, whom you may know as Agent Carter in the recent ABC television series.

The “Be Right Back” episode reminds me of another film that explored the romantic relationship between man and machine. It is the 2013 Spike Jonze film “Her” starring Joaquin Phoenix and the voice of Scarlett Johansson. There, Phoenix plays a man who literally falls in love with the Siri-like voice of his computer. This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. As computer assistants become more and more sophisticated, we are encouraged to think of them as persons. That’s why they have names. But any relationship between artificial intelligence and real intelligence is bound to be fraught with problems and that is what “Her” shows. Can a person be in love with a dis-embodied voice or is a body necessary? If you think about it, this is not a new question. In the past, there have been dis-embodied, long-distance relationships by mail or later telephone. Most of these did not work out once the parties met face to face, because real life is different from the intellectual life.

About six months ago I wrote about the peril of mistaking a life online with a real life. I urged readers to “Friend someone who lives in your neighborhood, rather than on Facebook. Deliver a Tweet in person. Interact with flesh and blood people and not just their avatars.” Television programs such as  “Black Mirror” and films such as “Her” show why artificial friends are as unhealthy as imaginary ones. It’s easy to be seduced by technology. That voice on your phone sounds so real. It’s always polite and helpful. Real people can be bothersome, rude and even hostile. But ultimately an online relationship is a fantasy. And living in a fantasy world, you always run the risk of a rude awakening.

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When Noon is Midnight

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by WS50 in Entertainment, Food

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Entertainment, Food, New Year's Eve, The Write Side of 50

Me and Lo. 12.28.14 NYE-2

Just before noon on December 28, 2014.

BY LOIS DESOCIO

Julie usually spends New Year’s Eve doing things like taking “the 7 train to Astoria, Queens with a couple of buddies to eat Greek food …” before they try to “grab balloons caught in the trees.” Or maybe she and Steve will “… make dinner and drink champagne and perhaps manage to hang out until the ball drops.”

This year she said she wants a New Year’s Eve party.

So who’s she gonna call?

I arrived at Julie’s beach house on December 28 promptly at 10:04 in the morning. Since we are both busy tonight, we put together a celebration when it worked for both of us — a Sunday morning. No one else was invited.

10:14 (a.m.). Waiting for the party to begin.

10:14 (a.m.). It’s officially a party.

We glittered. Her dining room table hosted hats, horns, sparkly 2015 sunglasses. Vodka iced in the freezer. Champagne chilled in the fridge. The cheese was creamy and smelly. Fig jam sweetened up the saltiness. In between pumpernickel bagels, we pulled and gnawed at a loaf of French bread. We even had a log of salami. And cookies.

P1080276

We splurged. Julie scrambled up some eggs, over which we grated a whole, pungent, earthy, magnificent white truffle. (Thank you, Anita.)

truffle

This is how Anna Magnani would smell a truffle.

We overindulged. And partied hard. We tooted horns. We drank (just a little) too much. We ate a lot. And we ate a lot of food that we usually try to not eat a lot of. We said goodbye five hours later, both of us feeling fat. Bloated. Fulfilled. And 9 p.m. that night became my “morning after.” Wide awake at midnight, it felt like noon.dinner is served

Julie and I wish you all a celebratory night, a glorious day-after, and a 2015 full of smelly cheese, a toast or two, a splurge or more, white truffles, salami, sparkles, horns, daylight, friendship, love, a wad of good fortune, and a clean bill of health.

me-and-lo-12-28-14-nye

Happy New Year.

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How to Throw a Party

20 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by WS50 in Entertainment, Food

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Entertainment, Food, fun, Hostessing skills, Julie Seyler, Lois DeSocio, Party-giving, The Write Side of 50

Come in and have a drink.

Come in and have a drink.

BY JULIE SEYLER

This post is about the Perle Mesta’s of the world, those men and women that know how to throw a fete without sweat. Lois DeSocio, my friend and co-collaborator on The Write Side of 50, is an extreme maven in the field of party-giving. Her menu is never less than inventive: French bread slathered in Nutella and topped with hot sausage, sardines with avocado, swiss cheese, olives and mayo, and meatballs made with grape jelly grace the table. Odd as the concoctions may be, they are always displayed invitingly and usually work as conversation starters. The bar is set up and user-friendly. What looks like thousands of glasses are at the ready for wine and beer, water and soft drinks, distilled liquors and fruit mixers. Olives. The guest list is varied. The combination of every “thing” never fails to make for a great party.

flowers flowers2

From observing her over the years, I have deduced Lo’s tricks for converting hostess “responsibilities” into a really fun time:

She starts working on her guest list.

About 45 days ahead of the party day, she sends out Save the Dates.

Menu contemplation commences. Different ideas percolate, like whether she’ll have it catered, self-prepared, or a combo of each.

Then there’s the issue of space and place. She’s always thinking of the comfort factor — where people will sit, stand, talk and eat and not feel crowded and overwhelmed.

For herself, she starts the party the day before when she puts on Dean Martin, pours a glass of celebratory wine, and sprinkles the finishing touches on the food. This allows her to act as if she’s going to a party, not giving the party.

And the last most crucial ingredient to being a hostess with the mostest:

feet at party

She always has a fabulous time at her party. She’s not worrying. She knows she has given her love.

So here’s to those that know how to throw a party. May we learn from the best of them.

Morning after

(And of course, there’s Lo’s prized morning-after mess.)

 

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