Happy Holidays from the Kunz Family (2020 edition)

Here's our family holiday card, sent out in January as is our custom, because who has time to send one in December? (Answer: literally everyone else.) It's a longer one, inspired by Dave Barry's annual Year in Review, but hopefully it's worth it... Welcome to the Kunz family holiday card! Grab your mask, hoard your toilet paper, and prepare to relive all seventeen months of 2020 with us...

JANUARY

2020 dawns, and the Kunz family is excited for the new year. Abigail returns home from her Latter-day Saint mission to Zimbabwe and begins processing applications to date her. The rest of the family is glad to see her after a year and a half’s absence. On a less positive note, nobody bothers to invest in Zoom, Charmin, or Purell, which turns out to be a grave mistake. But hindsight is 2020, a phrase we are officially retiring after this year.

FEBRUARY

2020 is shaping up to be a promising year. Ryan and Breanne announce the upcoming birth of their first child and prepare for a trip to Ireland. Connor and Claire get ready to go to Hawaii. Eric looks forward to sports. Quinn plans to complete his senior year. Dillon looks forward to a thriving social life at BYU. Reilly sees no reason that anyone would repeatedly shove a cotton swab into his brain, while Briana gets ready to do something other than keep their two young boys inside for months at a time. Meanwhile, 2020 laughs evilly, strokes its white Persian cat, and prepares to unleash a giant death laser at people’s plans.

MARCH

COVID happens! Everything is canceled, including concerts, movies, church, sports, social gatherings, friendship, fun, and emotional well-being. 2020 gets canceled so hard it may as well be Johnny Depp’s career. Quinn goes home from high school one day and never goes back. Travel plans are kissed goodbye. Speaking of kissing, Abigail meets a guy named Matt just before being trapped at home; he moves into the guest room above Eric’s shop to be near her, because a little worldwide pandemic isn’t going to get in the way of true love, or something. (Ew.) Connor and Claire also move in with Eric and Trisha for the lockdown; Trisha is secretly totally fine with this whole pandemic thing.

SECOND MARCH

April is subsumed into a second March, which is a bit like second breakfast, except with fewer hobbits and more soul-crushing anxiety. Ryan and Breanne settle in to work from home, joking that it sure would be weird if they had to do this for another month, but what are the odds of that? Abigail and Matthew, with nothing better to do than get to know each other, figure it’s about time to get engaged. Reilly, a physical therapist working in senior services, takes his first COVID test. (Don’t worry; it’s probably the only one, right?) Dillon moves home to stay safe.

THIRD MARCH

Connor and Claire (along with their cat Sybil) embark on a journey to North Carolina to take a new marketing job. Their car gives out halfway there with a broken transmission. (A day later, the CDC adds “broken transmission” to the growing list of COVID symptoms.) Ryan and Breanne buy a house, thereby achieving a major adult milestone and joining the exclusive community of people who get to complain about the cost of HVAC repairs. Reilly takes more COVID tests.

FOURTH MARCH

We’re not sure what happened during this month, which month this was, or even that it did, in fact, happen. Let’s move on.

JULY, MAYBE?

Abigail and Matt get married, thereby doubling the total non-running athletic ability in the Kunz family. All the family attends the wedding except for Reilly and Briana, who are trapped in Montana by strict quarantine requirements at Reilly’s job. With the tax season deadline extended until approximately June of 2150, Eric the CPA uses his free time to build a playhouse in the backyard for the growing roster of grandkids.

AUGUST

Ryan and Breanne welcome baby Matilda, who’s basically the literal incarnation of a tiny Disney princess, if Disney princesses were also poop firehoses. Dillon, after his careful efforts staying home all summer to avoid catching COVID, goes back to school and immediately catches COVID.

SEPTEMBER

Quinn gets his mission call to Reno, Nevada. Unlike missionaries called to foreign missions during this period, he looks forward to actually setting foot in his assigned mission. Reilly and Briana’s four-year-old son McKay starts preschool. Newly endowed with such learning, he becomes an expert on any given topic. (He quickly joins Facebook, where he fits right in.)

OCTOBER

Eric, Trisha, Matt, and Abby all catch COVID. Trisha uses her quarantine to finally get into Harry Potter. (Nobody tell her Snape kills Dumbledore, please.) Matt loses his sense of taste, which explains why he thinks the prequels are the best Star Wars movies. (I kid, Matt. Welcome to the family!) And Eric, seizing upon any sporting event still happening, watches BYU football soundly defeat anyone still willing to play them, including the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers and the Provo High School Bulldogs.

NOVEMBER

Quinn does a home missionary training center, which is just like the traditional experience but without the real MTC’s overwhelming sense of personal freedom and exciting variety of leisure activities. He eventually escapes and heads off to Reno. Somewhere around this time, Reilly takes his 30th COVID test (still negative, but at least the cavity leading to his brain is nice and wide now).

DECEMBER

Reilly and Briana’s other little boy, Nico, learns to walk when motivated by French fries across the room, thus demonstrating one of the great universal truths of the human condition. And with the holiday season comes a worldwide source of hope, joy, and brotherly love in these trying times: season 2 of The Mandalorian. Christmas also happens. All joking aside, it’s been a rough year for a lot of people, and we feel for all those who’ve struggled. We hope 2021 is a better year for everyone—and if it isn’t, we hope we each can all be a little better instead. And if not… there’s always 2022. Probably.

Happy Holidays from the Kunz Family (2019)

Originally sent out at the end of January 2020.

2019: A Poem

Twenty-nineteen was a year like no other

For the Kunz siblings, spouses, father, and mother.

Here’s our Christmas card then—(sort of) in time!

A couple months late, but who cares? It rhymes.

ERIC's new hobby is rustic and gritty:

Taking old structures and making them pretty.

He fixed up our cabin and the chicken coop, too—

Like Chip and Joanna, but with no camera crew.

TRISHA has worked to learn some more Spanish,

Conjugating all the verbs she can manage.

Now she can inquire of her amigos Mexicanos:

“Me llamo es Trisha; ¿dónde estás los baños?”

RYAN and BREANNE vacationed in Sweden,

A watery, meatball-filled garden of Eden.

But what’s the biggest event in their lives, you may ask?

Breanne let Ryan grow a mustache.

A new sweet infant brightened the days

Of REILLY, BRIANA, and their son MCKAY

This youngster brought joy when he smiled and cooed

His name’s Baby Yoda! (They had their second child, too.)

CONNOR and CLAIRE got themselves a new cat.

It’s mostly for Claire, to be precise about that.

She’s needy, eats paper, and stares at the air.

(To be clear, I mean mostly the cat, not Claire.)

DILLON's expanding his artistic pursuits

With painting, songwriting, and poetry to boot!

So maybe next year this newly minted bard

Can write the dang family Christmas card.

After many long months, ABBY's back from her mission

And headed to school to pursue her ambitions.

She preached the true gospel with all of her power

And Africa’s great, but so are hot showers.

Speaking of power, QUINN's begun his ascension

In a rise to that’s fraught with intrigue and tension

To a position of influence and prestige (in a fashion)

As Rigby High Table Tennis Club Co-Captain.

So there you have it, our card long-awaited.

What happens next year, when our story’s related?

How will we chronicle all that transpires?

One thing’s for certain: writing poems make me tired.

Fantastic Boats and Where to Find Them: Our Scandinavian Trek

Time for the annual Kunz Europe Trek blog post. Let’s get right into it, ja?

Stockholm!

STOCKHOLM

Our trip began in the lovely city of Stockholm, Sweden—a bustling fusion of the old and new atop fourteen islands on the mouth of the Baltic Sea. It’s a city full of history and culture, founded by Vikings in the Middle Ages. Both Norwegians and Swedes love their Viking forebears, whose legacy lives on wherever you look. They’re not allowed to openly raid and pillage anymore; instead, they just charge you $20 for a burger.

The oldest part of Stockholm is Gamla Stan, the Old City. Back in the Middle Ages, this was Stockholm. I’m not sure they had all the tourist shops selling souvenir Viking mugs back then, but I’m no historian. Still, if you’re after an immersive walk back in time, the quaint, medieval-style buildings and narrow, cobblestoned roads are something to see. (Surprisingly, there’s also an excellent, modern-looking sci-fi/fantasy bookstore tucked into an ancient row of shops. I think it’s just called Sci-Fi Bookstore. The Swedish are nothing if not straightforward.)

Meatballs, obviously

On our first night, we stopped at Meatballs for the People, recommended as one of the better purveyors of genuine Swedish meatballs in the city. We put our names on the waiting list and came back an hour and a half later to sample some truly excellent meatballs. Now, much of Scandinavian cuisine involves fish, which is basically meat’s version of salad, but meatballs are a notable and tasty exception. (I think they may have had fish meatballs among the many varieties available, but we passed.)

In the morning, we went for a run to one of Stockholm’s many parks. Scandinavians are very active—no matter where you are in the city, there’s always a jogger or a cyclist trying to pass you. It’s a wonderful thing. They could teach Americans a thing or two about getting off our butts and exercising. Speaking of butts, Europeans paradoxically also seem unwilling to give up their smoking habits. Sweden isn’t as bad as some European countries in terms of cigarette use (looking at you, France and Italy, which are Little Tyke cars driving around in giant ashtrays), but come on, guys.

A church in Skansen.

Stockholm is built on 14 islands, so the canal tour was a must. After that, we visited Skansen, which is like This is the Place (if you’re from Utah), except larger and Swedish. It’s a bunch of original Scandinavian buildings transplanted into one spot and populated by guides in period clothing who will happily tell you about how Sven Kjieldsen or Lars Svenssen lived in this tiny one-room farmhouse with his family over the winter, eating nothing but frozen fish.

Next came one of our Stockholm highlights. Djurgården was once the king’s private hunting ground; now it’s a public park. We rented bikes and explored the shores, riding past grand mansions and watching boats sail through the bay.

Biking around Djurgården.

The next day was full of beautiful old buildings and one really cool ship. We saw Stockholm’s main cathedral, where the princess of Sweden married her personal trainer a few years ago. (True story.) We also toured the royal apartments, the treasury of Sweden’s crown jewels, one random Swedish king’s collection of statues, and a museum dedicated to the old Stockholm castle, which burned down in the 1600s. (The chief fire watcher, who had one job and apparently sucked at it, was executed by running the gauntlet through hundreds of soldiers who had permission to beat him as hard as they could with clubs.)

(Another true story: Stockholm was founded in the Middle Ages by a guy named Birger Jarl. “Jarl” was just a title for high-ranking Scandinavian chieftains. Some historians think he was technically a king, but my guess is they don’t call him that, because nobody wants their city to have been founded by a dude named Birger King.)

And then came the Vasa, which might have been both of our highlight of the trip. In 1628, the king of Sweden really wanted to show the other powers in the area not to mess with him, so he had a giant warship built. The Vasa was the pride of the Swedish Navy, its hull decorated with hundreds of intricately carved statues, each gunport adorned with a roaring lion. It’s five stories tall, not counting the masts, and must have been a truly awesome sight sailing out of the Stockholm harbor to go kick some Danish butt…until, that is, it capsized before even making it out of the bay. It was built far too narrow and high, so it took on water and sank to the bottom. About 30 people drowned.

333 years later, the Vasa was raised to the surface. It’s still remarkably preserved. I’m a firm believer that every trip to Europe needs at least one moment where your mind gets blown, and for me that was when I walked in and saw this once-mighty warship, a titan of wood and rope rearing up to do in death what it never could in life: strike awe into the hearts of people from far beyond Sweden’s shores.

The museum itself is pretty great, too—you can walk through a replica of the gundeck, read the stories and see the bones of the people who died, and get up close to see the intricate carvings on the stern. It’s worth a trip to Stockholm just to see the Vasa.

But that wasn’t the end of our Stockholm adventure. In our quest to find the best Swedish food, we were led to La Neta, which the Internet called the best Mexican food in Sweden. This might sound like an easy claim—like having the cutest outfit in a nudist colony—but it was as good as pretty much anything I’ve had in the States.

I should mention that not everything was a source of wonder and joy: Stockholm provided us with the first negative Airbnb experience either of us have ever had. We’re familiar with the camera’s ability to add a hundred square feet to any Airbnb dwelling, but this one was more than just smaller than it had appeared: the broken couch looked like a sinking ship, the pillows were has lumpy as gunny sacks full of dead cats, and the mattress had actual bloodstains on it. (Fun!) We took one look at the place and bought our own sheets, pillows, and blankets, hoping that the Oslo place would be a bit better.

OSLO

Our Airbnb in Oslo was a huge step up. But we didn’t stay there for long before dropping off our stuff and heading off on a hike. Kolsåstoppen is a scenic overlook over the Oslofjord. Whichever Norse god is in charge of weather (I think his name is Freyr, but I had a really good joke in mind if it were Thor) blessed us with a clear blue sky that day as we hiked up and took in the vista we would be exploring over the next few days.

The view from Kolsåstoppen

Our Airbnb was right next to Vigeland Park, a lovely park full of sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. Vigeland was a sculptor who promised to spend the rest of his life beautifying Oslo in return for a stipend. Whether he succeeded mostly depends on your feelings toward nudity. The sculptures include hundreds of nude figures engaged in a variety of different activities, some of which are left to the imagination. I call this one “First Day of School”:

He’s probalby wearing an invisible Fjällräven Kanken backpack.

The centerpiece of the park is this weird obelisk full of naked people. I’m fine with nudity in art (we did go to Italy last year, after all), but I also have no problem with clothing.

The Vigeland obelisk

The next day, the weather turned decidedly less welcoming. Which was ideal for a few more museums, and less ideal for certain outdoor activities, which I’ll get to momentarily.

The Viking Ship Museum

We saw a lot of boats on this trip. Seriously, we should have called this trip Fantastic Boats and Where to Find Them. In addition to the aforementioned Vasa, we saw two of the best-preserved Viking ships in the world, as well as a third ship that didn’t look quite as seaworthy these days; the polar exploration ship Gjøa (your guess is as good as mine as far as pronunciation goes); and the Fram, the ship that carried Roald Amundsen to Antarctica on his daring journey to claim the South Pole. (That was after it had already taken the explorer Fridjolf Nansen near the North Pole, where it was trapped in the ice for five years. That ship has seen more than any Instagram travel influencer.) We also had the chance to see the Kon-Tiki, the raft Thor Heyerdahl used to prove that ancient South Americans could have settled Polynesia, but by then we had seen enough boats to last us a while.

The story of the race to the South Pole is fascinating. It involves two men—the Norwegian Roald Amundsen and the Englishman Robert Falcon Scott. Both desperately wanted to be the first man to set foot on the Earth’s southernmost point, and each took a harrowing journey to get there. Amundsen brought sled dogs, while Scott brought motorized sledges that immediately crapped out when they tried to start them in the freezing air. Most of the Amundsen’s dogs died along the way (and were eaten), but Amundsen made it to the Pole first, leaving Scott a letter to deliver home in case he (Amundsen) didn’t make it back. But that proved unnecessary; Amundsen returned a national hero. After a grueling journey, Scott and his men arrived at the South Pole, only to find the Norwegian flag flapping in the freezing air. I can’t imagine the disappointment he must have felt as he turned around to go home, but it only got worse for him: he and his men were trapped in their tent for weeks on the return journey while a blizzard raged outside. Their bodies were found several months later.

You could walk around the Fram’s deck, exploring its cabins and imagining what it would be like to brave hostile conditions, get trapped in the ice for years, and eventually kill and eat your sled dogs. (They do not sell sled dog jerky in the gift shop.)

The Fram

Speaking of hostile conditions, we had a tour of the Oslofjord scheduled for that morning as well. We had hoped it would be enclosed, with nice dry seats, like our tour of the Stockholm canals a few days before… but alas. The fjord tour was to take place from the upper deck of a small sailing ship, with only a tarp to protect us from the elements.

That, it turned out, only enhanced the experience—at least for me. We cruised around the fjord, getting a good look at lonely lighthouses and clapboard houses hugging the sides of stark green islands. There’s a kind of cold, austere beauty to the Oslofjord. The rain lashed the ship entire time, but it wasn’t hard to imagine myself as an explorer or Viking (or at least, something other than a tourist who had paid 330 Norwegian krona to sit on a boat in the rain).

While on the boat, the guide mentioned a ruined monastery on an island named Høvedoya. So of course the next day we took a boat out there and explored it. The monks here were apparently beholden to a rule where they had to get up and dawn and go to bed at dusk, which sounds fine until you remember that during certain parts of the year the sun rises at 4am and goes down at 10:30pm.

Høvedoya monastery

While in Oslo, we also met up with my famous YouTuber cousin Zack (Jerry Rig Everything, 3.7 million followers) and his famous YouTuber friend Dan (What’s Inside, 6.5 million followers) . Zack had seen my Instagram and messaged me, telling me he was on his way to Oslo right then to do something for his channel, filming Mercedes’ new car or building a rocket or something. So we had dinner. (See, Mom, I do hang out with my cousins.)

We were only in Scandinavia for slightly less than six full days, but we packed a lot in there. If you have a week to spare to take a look at beautiful scenery, cool cities, and lots of boats, you know exactly where to go.

Happy Holidays from the Kunz Family (2018)

Welcome to the Kunz family Christmas card, which we’re actually getting out before Christmas this year, so you should be proud of us.

Eric has been exercising his carpentry skills, transforming an ancient, filth-ridden chicken coop into a cabin that serves as the epitome of rustic comfort. He will probably soon have an HGTV show of his own. Jury’s still out on whether it will be called Coops to Castles or Cabin Fever: Ultimate Upgrade Edition.

After two more of her children got married this year, Trisha is enjoying being a mother-in-law to three daughters-in-law and a nana to little McKay. She secretly wants more grandkids, but she needs to be patient. Those will come in time.

Ryan Kunz and the lovely Breanne got married, traveled the world, and pretty much lived the dream. Ryan is having trouble remembering all that, however, because he just had double hernia surgery and is realizing exactly how many activities require abdominal muscles—including breathing, coughing, sneezing, twisting, eating, existing, and—somehow—writing the family Christmas card.

Reilly graduated physical therapy school and is taking Briana and McKay out to tend to the needs of a remote frontier community in Montana. Reilly will help the residents regain movement, manage pain, and maybe cope with arrow wounds, dysentery, and snakebites. (Oh, what was that? They have a Target there?)

Connor and Claire underwent several major life transitions, including marriage and getting an adult job. They live in a quaint old schoolhouse that’s super cute and possibly haunted. Their real estate agent assures them that the creepy little girl who sometimes stands behind them in the bathroom mirror is just a charming quirk that old houses have.

Dillon is still at BYU, where he recently organized a spur-of-the-moment, 100-person lightning tournament that culminated in the referee actually breathing fire. He’s trying to apply that same ingenuity, organization, and energy to dating, though it’s getting expensive to bring along a fire-breathing circus performer to each date.

Abigail is on a mission in Zimbabwe, where she preaches the gospel, washes her clothes by hand, and plays games with little children. In only a few months there, she has dealt with cholera, street riots, water shortages, robbers, and eating rice for every meal, none of which are made up.

This year, in addition to helping Dad fix up the chicken coop, Quinn collected all six Infinity Stones, making him the most powerful being in the universe. Plus, he won the family ghost pepper ramen challenge while his brothers nearly died, which is probably more impressive.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year from the Kunz family!

How Was Your Trip? (Italian Honeymoon Edition)

It’s that time of year again, when I undergo my millennial duty to go on a European vacation and exhaustively document it on social media. This year, however, it was the honeymoon, the lovely Breanne Anderson and I having just joined ourselves together in holy matrimony. We could think of literally no more romantic place on Earth than Italy, so we thought, Hey, let’s go see if the gelato really is as near-narcotic as people say it is. 

We flew into northern Italy, into the city of Milan. And so began our adventure…

Milan

The actual city of Milan rates a solid thumbs-sideways. There’s nothing wrong with it—it’s just another generic European city where everyone is smoking and driving comically tiny cars. (Seriously. Europe is basically a giant ashtray underneath an armada of Little Tykes cars.) It’s somewhat charming in its own right, but Milan is best appreciated before you have a chance to take in the more vacation-friendly Florence or Rome. As a jumping-point to the scenic Lake Country, Milan is great (though next time we might stay right in Varenna, on the lake itself). But by itself, it’s pretty skippable. Sorry, Milan. I’m sure lots of people like you, and you’re good at stuff. 

Attractions seen in Milan: Sforza Castle, Milan Duomo

Lake Como

You know that scene at the end of Casino Royale where James Bond catches up with the bad guy at an exotic lakehouse and shoots him in the leg? (It’s a great scene.) Or how about that scene in Attack of the Clones where Anakin tries to woo Padmé by comparing the smoothness of her skin to the roughness of sand? (It’s a terrible scene. I’ve tried that, and it doesn’t work.) Turns out both scenes were filmed in the same place. It’s this villa here:

All of the worst scenes of the worst Star Wars movie were filmed here, which makes it sort of a holy place, in a weird way.

That fancy house sits on the shore of Lake Como, a lovely little postcard-generating body of water about 45 minutes north of Milan. Breanne and I took a water ferry from the town of Como to the little village of Varenna, which is a honeymoon destination if there ever was one. You can stroll along a sunlit promenade, hike up to a castle with stunning panoramic views, or get lost while trying to find the tourist information center in order to locate said sunlit promenade and castle. We did all three, and we definitely didn’t spend enough time in Varenna.

Check out the stunning beauty here in Italy. (Also pictured: the town of Varenna and accompanying scenery.) 

Attractions seen at Lake Como: The lake, lots of fancy houses, possibly George Clooney’s house, Vezio Castle

Florence

Florence is, in short, a wonderful place. What is about this city that earned a hearty recommendation from every Italy traveler on Facebook while I was planning the trip? What is it about Florence that earned it spot as our favorite city we visited? Maybe it’s the fact that it’s full of sights, all packed into a helpful, walk-friendly handful of square miles. If art is your jam, Florence has you covered. If cool old buildings are your thing, Florence comes through. Food? Got it. Shopping? Got that, too. Quaint little medieval-looking streets? Check. More gelato than you can possibly eat? Challenge accepted. 

The centerpiece of any Florence experience is the majestic Duomo (Italian for “cathedral”), which was designed by some Renaissance guy sometime between 1000 and 1986 AD (after a while, all that stuff gets a little hazy). It’s a striking example of early Renaissance flavor, or possibly Baroque. I don’t remember, but its super amazing. The architect eschewed the typical white marble of other cathedrals in favor of an exterior that’s a striking maroon, dark green, and eggshell white.

The interior of the Duomo’s dome is an arresting 360-degree panorama depicting, among other things, the final fates of the wicked. It’s just like Where’s Waldo, except instead of a man in a striped hat you can find goodies like a frog-man beating a guy with a club, a winged goat demon devouring people whole, and some poor soul being flayed alive in graphic detail. Those Renaissance artists sure did a lot of thinking about the final fate of the wicked. I bet they were real fun at parties. 

This is the happy part of the underside of the dome. 

And this is the scary part. 

No trip to Italy would be complete without acknowledging the contributions of Michelangelo, who labored tirelessly so future tourists would have lots of stuff to visit. No, seriously—everywhere you look there's something else he designed, painted, or sculpted. The guy was a master at everything he put his mind to. It’s surprise he’s only my third favorite Ninja Turtle.

This is the tomb of Michelangelo in the Santa Croce cathedral. The three statues represent painting, sculpture, and architecture all mourning his loss. There's no indication that Michelangelo was buried with his nunchucks, which is a shame. 

We visited the Accademia, the Uffuzi Gallery, and several other places loaded full of art. We saw Michelangelo’s David in all his naked, 13-foot-tall splendor. We saw more Madonna and Childs than I knew existed. Now, I like art. But I like it in small, digestible quantities. After several days of seeing the some of the greatest art in the Western world, every random naked Greek statue starts to blur together and their explanatory plaques all sound exactly the same:

Madonna and child, ca. 1323, Florence. Marble. Created by Italian sculptor Luigi Supermario under the patronage of Lord Tywin Lannister, this work represents the artist’s early attempts to merge Baroque neoclassicism with Renaissance neo-hyperthyroidism. We swear this Virgin Mary is totally different from the 139 others you’ve seen.

Side note: No matter where we went, many of the nude male statues were missing certain bits. I found this fascinating, despite my new wife’s exasperation every time I pointed it out. Apparently, someone freaked out at all the nudity and tried to take action. (Nobody let my mom in there, did they?) 

On that note, let’s talk about another of Italy’s major contributions to Western society. If you’ve never had gelato in Italy, especially Florence, you’ve never had gelato. It’s a sort of really soft ice cream, hand made from angel tears and 100% real fruit. (I think it’s organic, too. They only use free-range, pesticide-free angels.) We started off with gelato once a day, then progressed to twice a day, and we were up to three times a day by the time we left. I think both of us were secretly okay with four times a day, but we were reluctant to voice that opinion. 

My favorite flavor was the fragola, or strawberry.

Our most invigorating experience in Florence came when we rented bikes and attempted a nice, pleasant ride through the city streets. I guess I had in mind an experience similar to the one I had in Austria last year, where there are dedicated bike lanes and the only danger is from absurdly fit septuagenarians who want to run you over. In Italy, however, I suspect motorists get tax breaks for each cyclist they maim. Whatever their incentive, I’m confident that drivers in Italy are actively trying to kill you. We learned this quickly as we wove through the narrow streets, dodging cars, motorcycles, and Florence’s cute little half-sized buses, which are still more than large enough to render any cyclist suddenly two-dimensional. Breanne compared it to a game of Mario Kart, which was an unsettling comparison for me given that I consider it a major accomplishment if I get anything other than last place in that game. Nevertheless, biking was one of our highlights. It really did get the adrenaline up. 

Attractions seen in Florence: Duomo cathedral, dome, baptistery, bell tower, and museum; Accademia; Ponte Vecchio; Medici chapels, Uffizi Gallery; Galileo museum; Piazza Michelangelo; Palazzo Vecchio; Palazzo Pitti and gardens; Santa Croce

Rome

Speaking of wanton bloodshed, our first stop in Rome was the Coliseum. I apparently missed the memo that the purest tourist experience is as part of a gigantic tour group. We experienced them in Florence, but it wasn’t till Rome that tour groups really got on my nerves. It’s hard to get anywhere without a legion of squealing schoolchildren blocking your path. Once we got in, however, we saw the Coliseum is a grand old edifice so like our modern sports stadiums that while you’re pressing through the throngs in the lower levels, you can easily forget you’re not at the LaVell Edwards Stadium at BYU at halftime, trying to score an overpriced hot dog. Then you wander up into the sunlight, where you can imagine gladiators going to the deaths or Christians being fed to lions. Or in my case, you can imagine tour groups being fed to lions. Are you not entertained?

The Forum was less crowded, maybe because the Coliseum was too packed for most people to escape. It’s one of Rome’s most visited sites, and for good reason. The Forum was once the political center of Rome, bursting with temples, palaces, and thoroughfares. There’s enough left over that you can still fill in the gaps in the rubble with your mind, imagining a glorious empire at its zenith. It’s really quite something to behold, and I say that without an iota of facetiousness. Check this out:

There's a super famous Percy Shelley poem that makes the rounds in pop culture every few years. It was on Breaking Bad and one of the Alien movies. Anyway, it's what I was thinking about when I saw this place. It goes like this...

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

We visited the Trevi Fountain, because I was informed it was in the Lizzie McGuire Movie and was therefore a must-see.

Another highlight of Rome is St. Peter’s Basilica. This may just be the most impressive church in the world. It’s so huge that you could fit at least six of the Salt Lake Temple right inside, by our estimation. (We live in Salt Lake City, so that’s our most readily available comparison.) Not only that, but every inch is covered in ornate scrollwork or gold or marble or some towering statue of a saint. 

This picture doesn't really do it justice. 

Less impressive, unfortunately, is the Vatican Museum. This sprawling complex had its moments, but we happened to be in Rome during Holy Week, which meant we were basically sharing the city with all of Catholicism, most of whom were in line with us. The Vatican Museum walks you through all the fancy art the Catholic Church mysteriously ended up with over the millennia (maybe all those ancient empires just left their priceless artifacts in the lost and found, who knows?), terminating at the Sistine Chapel. During peak season or Holy Week, visitors can stand in line for an hour or two for the privilege of squeezing even tighter into narrow corridors, vaguely aware of the art they can glimpse over other visitors’ heads. 

I did enjoy the map room, where the crowd eased up long enough to enjoy these incredibly detailed room-high maps, which put any fantasy map I’ve ever seen to shame. 

You can't see it here, but every little town is represented with a unique cluster of tiny buildings, each artfully detailed. It's incredible. 

You can see the detail a bit more in this one.

I imagine that Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel to evoke a sense of reverent awe. Unfortunately, by the time you’ve been herded like cattle for upwards of two hours through densely crowded rooms, the chapel instead evokes a feeling of a very full bladder, accompanied by anger and vaguely murderous impulses directed toward the people blocking the exit.

Contrast that with Ostia Antica, a well-preserved port city an hour from Rome, where the crowds were sparse, the sun was shining, and you could basically walk wherever you wanted. You could sidle up to the bar in the ancient tavern, climb up onto the roof of the surviving apartments to get a better look, or walk along the mosaics in the public bathhouse. The atmosphere there is so relaxed that there was literally a class of high schoolers having some sort of talent show in the ancient amphitheater, which we discovered after wondering why a quartet of long-haired hoodlums were lip syncing to System of a Down in the middle of a bunch of Roman ruins.

You pretty much have free rein of the place, whether it's the sprawling cityscape...

...the ruins partially reclaimed by the earth...

...or the elaborate mosaics.

The Castle of the Angels, overlooking the Tiber, is also worth a visit. It used to be a fortress, then it was a hideout for the popes, and now it's a museum. 

At the top of the castle is the Archangel Michael, depicted in the act of heroically slaying tour groups. 

This is obviously a bust of the great Roman Emperor Voldemortus Tomriddlus.

Oh, one more thing in Rome. 

They wouldn’t let us take pictures of the Capuchin Crypts, so I’ll supply some pictures from Google. We’re still a little hazy on how all these bones ended up there, but at some point some fun-loving person decided to take the bones of the deceased Capuchin monks and arrange them in interesting patterns. The result is some rather macabre art. 

Nothing weird about this. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons.)

Nothing at all. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons.)

The creepiest part is the sign over the door:

What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you shall be.

I think that's a good place to end the blog post, don't you? Sleep well tonight. 

Attractions seen in Rome: Pantheon, Coliseum, Forum, St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican Museum and Sistine Chapel, Castel Sant'Angelo, Spanish Steps, Capuchin Crypt, Trevi Fountain, Ostia Antica

A Leap from the Lion's Head

Originally posted June 29, 2015.

At the climax of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana (played by Harrison Ford) and his father (played by Sean Connery) have reached the ancient hiding place of the Holy Grail just in time to be captured by the Nazis. In order to motivate Indy to retrieve the Grail (which bestows mystical healing powers to those who drink of it), the head Nazi baddie shoots Indy’s father. Realizing he has no choice but to brave the three devices of lethal cunning that bar the way to the Grail, Indiana Jones sets out into the booby-trapped temple. He gets through the first two challenges and reaches the third. It appears to be an impassable chasm, yawning menacingly in Indy’s path. 

“Impossible,” he mutters to himself. “Nobody can jump this.” 

He recalls the cryptic instructions his father gave him for passing this obstacle: Only with a leap from the lion’s head (which is carved near the brink where he stands) can he prove his worth.  

Indiana gazes uncertainly at the gap between himself and the far end of the chasm. Outside of the temple, his wounded father gasps with what may well be his dying breath, “You must believe, boy. You must believe."

Indy can shy away from the challenge, but that will cost him dearly. Only with the Grail’s power can he save his father, and only by taking a literal leap of faith can he advance.

How many of us have been at this same spot? How many of us have faced our own bottomless chasms, too terrified of failure to move forward? I know I certainly have. For years, I was poised on the edge of that abyss, doubting that God would sustain me. Specifically, I showed a distinct lack of faith that my Heavenly Father would one day allow me to find my eternal companion.

This perhaps isn’t the time and place to fully expound upon the length and breadth of my insecurities, but let’s just say that I’ve had my share of doubts that I’d ever find my mate. At the beginning, when the first of my friends started to get married, it started as a niggling little fear in the back of my mind, a whispered uncertainty that I would ever be as happy as the smiling couples whom I watched join their lives together in blissful matrimony. Later, it became a dull buzz of fear, an ambient clamor I couldn’t quite block out as more and more friends left me behind in their unhindered quests to get married. Eventually it amplified into a full-blown roar of panic in my late twenties when I realized I was among the last of any of my groups of friends to find The One. 

The doubts came. Through His authorized servants, God made the promise that I would find the right person someday, and yet I couldn't believe. God meant for some people to be happy, I reasoned, but not everyone. Some people would have the chance to meet their special someone, but that was a treat reserved only for the good-looking or the lucky. And I believed myself to be neither of those things. I longed to meet Her, The One, that special girl who would make all of my doubts flee. I know what it is to feel like half a song, a lonely melody that waiting in vain for a harmony to complete it. I know what it is to desperately miss someone I’ve never met, like being homesick for a place I’ve never been. For years, I sank into a morass of despair, watching my options shrink and my prospects dry up. My friends all got married and had kids. All the girls I’d liked and pursued found guys way better looking than me and got busy churning out children. 

I lingered for years on the edge of my own personal chasm. As the voices of people I loved quietly reassured me, “You must believe, boy,” I ignored them, unable to move forward. I saw only the depth of the gulf before me. 

And so I stood there where Indiana Jones stood, facing the same choice that lay before him: show a little faith, or never move forward.

Indiana, naturally, makes the right choice. With the admonition of his dying father ringing in his ears, Indy steps forward into nothingness . . . 

. . . and alights on a hidden bridge, perfectly sculpted and fashioned to blend in with the rock of the chasm. John Williams' epic score swells, and Indiana, his faith rewarded, walks across the bridge to the final chamber where the Holy Grail awaits.

There’s still another test ahead of him—he has to choose the real Grail from amid a host of impostors—but he has made substantial progress, putting his faith into action and seeing the rewards thereof. (Does he find the Grail and save his father? If you haven't seen the movie, I won't spoil the ending, but I find your lack of pop culture disturbing.)

As for me, there wasn’t ever a certain moment when everything changed, when suddenly the light flooded my mind and thrust the right path into sharp relief. It came slowly over the last year, when at some point I reached my darkest extremity and realized there was no way to go but up. Somewhere along the path, I realized that if I didn’t step blindly forward and take the leap from the lion’s head, if I never showed my faith by cheerfully going on with my life, I would simply never go forward. That was the beginning, the seed of faith from which sprang the kernel of hope.

From there came the moments when my faith was rewarded, when I stepped forward into nothingness and found myself supported by unseen forces. They were small things, like the day when I felt an unnatural surge of happiness for no reason, or the day when I came home frustrated and then found myself supported by kind, loving friends.  

That’s not to say I never have a bad day or a moment of weakness when I wonder why God is taking His sweet time leading me to my wife. I’d like to end this post by telling of the miraculous way in which I found my wife after showing my faith, the way in which I finally drank from my personal Holy Grail. But of course that’s not the end. No, there’s still more ahead for me, more trials, just like there was for Indiana Jones. But unlike before, I really do believe that this will end well. 

Yes, I still have my bad days, those times when I flirt idly with despair, but I can pull myself out because I trust God to lead me in the right direction. If you asked me for that assurance a year ago, I couldn’t have given it to you. But now I can say with a hard-won certainty that there’s someone for me, because I have received that promise from my Heavenly Father. 

I may not meet her soon, but most of the time I trust that God does have someone wonderful in store for me. I’m okay with a little waiting, because I know she is out there, probably navigating her own treacherous obstacle course in her quest to find me. And if she doesn’t mind gratuitous Indiana Jones references, I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.

And so on those hard days when I wonder what a guy like me has to do to get a girl, I remember the timeless advice from the lips of Sean Connery:

You must believe, boy.

Note from three years later: I met her. :)

Abandon All Hope: An Open Letter to Xfinity

Originally published June 9, 2017. 

Dearest Xfinity:

Not long ago, as my roommate was moving out, it fell upon me to have the utilities put in my name. My roommate had used your Xfinity Internet services, and he advised me, “Their Internet’s faster than the others’, but Xfinity is the devil.” I chose to give Xfinity the benefit of the doubt, assuming that “the devil” was mere hyperbole, and that your corporate headquarters were not nestled squarely in hell, administered by Satan from an elegant office with a good view of bubbling lava and sinners being flayed alive.

That assumption is now being challenged.

I started my quest for the internet by calling 1-800-XFINITY, where I was informed I would have to make a trip to the local Xfinity office.

And so I arrived at the Xfinity office twenty minutes from my apartment. Having spoken with the Xfinity representative on the phone, I was assured that the people here would give me everything I needed in order to set up my own Internet. Still operating under that naïve belief, I walked in the door and got in line. There I waited for perhaps forty-five minutes behind a queue of doleful folks shuffling along like shackled extras in a low-budget production of Les Miserables.

Eventually, I was called to one of the service stations. As the Xfinity employee there wrote down my information, a distressed-looking woman hovered behind me.

“Can I help you?” my Xfinity employee said to the woman behind me.

“Yes,” said the woman with a frown, “my cable box doesn’t work.”

“You’ll have to get in the back of the line,” said the Xfinity drone.

“I already waited in line today for an hour,” said the woman, struggling to maintain her calm, “and was told the cable box should work. Then I got in line again and they told me someone would come by my house in two weeks. Can I just get a new one now? I’m already here.”

“Get in line again and we’ll take a look at it,” said the Xfinity person.

“Go ahead and help her,” I said to the Xfinity person, mostly because the woman was looking at the Xfinity person as one might regard a burglar rifling through one’s safe deposit box in the middle of the night. If the woman had been exposed to gamma radiation, she would have already turned green, grown in size, and demolished the office.

“No, she needs to get in line,” said the Xfinity person, who finished giving me a packet of equipment and disappeared into the back, possibly to check on the giant cloning facility where they grow and program Xfinity employees.

I left, giving an apologetic glance to the fuming woman. Surely that sorry kind of customer service was a fluke, I thought. At home, I started to set up my Internet and realized Xfinity had not given me a router. After calling the automated helpline several times, I was told to go back to the Xfinity office and pick one up. Because I was about to leave for the Fourth of July holiday, I delayed until the next week, assuring my roommates that soon we would have Internet again and we could go back to our regular routine of streaming Gilmore Girls together while telling people we were actually watching Fast & Furious XVII: The Fast and the Führer-ious (the one where they build time-traveling sports cars to steal Hitler’s gold).

Several days later, I returned to the Xfinity office. This time, there were even more forlorn-looking people in line than there had been the first time—like the waiting room of an oncologist’s office, except without all the rampant optimism. I thought back to Dante’s Inferno and the famous sign over the entrance to hell that reads, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” But surely it wouldn’t be that bad. I’d wait a while, get a router, and go home. Like Hercules, I would brave the underworld and return with my prize.

I waited for about an hour and a half. If I had been a common mayfly, which lives about twenty-four hours, I would have just wasted about a sixteenth of my life in the Xfinity line, and my mayfly girlfriend would have run off with some other mayfly with a bigger thorax.

At last, they called my name. “I’m here to pick up a router and Ethernet cable,” I told the Xfinity employee, who was—to my dismay—the same employee who had reacted so coldly to the woman’s plight a few days earlier. (Or perhaps it was just a clone, and my theory about Xfinity employees being mass-produced somewhere was correct.)

“We’re all out of routers,” said the clone.

“I see,” I replied. Because this was exactly the answer I had been hoping for after waiting in line for 1.5 hours, I had to consider an appropriate response, by which I mean one that would not land me in jail. I asked, “What would you like me to do?”

“Call 1-800-XFINITY,” said the clone, dismissing me.

Imagining the clone burned to ash with lasers from my eyes, I left without another word. On the way home, I called the number.

“Thank you for calling Xfinity,” said the automated voice. “For billing and payment, press 1. For technical help, press 2. For more options, press 3.”

Wondering which button to push to submit a profanity-laden tirade, I pressed 2. A heavily accented voice eventually answered, and I explained my situation, including the long wait at the Xfinity office and my increasingly distant hope of receiving a router.

“I see,” said the customer service representative. “You need a router. Let me see what I can do for you.” After a minute of crackly on-hold music that bore a strange resemblance to early-2000s modem static, she returned. “You can pick one up at your nearest Xfinity office,” she said.

At this point, it was a good thing that thousands of miles and several circles of hell probably separated me from the representative. Speaking slowly, I said, “That’s where I just came from. They were out. And they told me to call you.”

“I see,” said the representative, who, as I was beginning to suspect, was one of the rejects from the latest batch of Xfinity clones, one of those whose growth tube had malfunctioned in mid-production. “Let me put you on hold.”

After a minute so, the line went dead, at which point I called CenturyLink.

I now have several suggestions for you to improve customer service:

First, hire more people to work during peak hours so we don’t have to wait in line for an hour and a half. Surely there are homeless people who will work for minimum wage, especially if all they have to do is tell people you’re out of routers or just can’t help.

Second, set up some kind of system when people check in so we know that at the end of our wait you might actually be able to help.

Third, re-read this letter approximately eighty times. You wasted about four hours of my time—I waited in line, drove so I could wait in line, and waited as I could be placed on hold—so I think it only fair that you spend an equal amount of time engaged in similarly meaningless pursuits. (If you finish reading this letter the specified number of times before the four-hour mark, consider gnawing your toes off. This would not help overall productivity, but it would still be more helpful than the service rendered by most of your employees I have encountered, and it would definitely make me feel better.)

I don't expect a reply, of course—I'm sure your upper management is busy, perhaps engaged in a fiddling competition over somebody's soul in Georgia or something.

Thank you for your time. Don’t forget to block out the next four hours or so. 

Sincerely,

Ryan

Why Trials Don't Have to Get You Down

Originally published August 19, 2016.

Imagine this: you’re giving a presentation in class. Or in front of your clients. Or you're trying to win the affections of that doe-eyed cutie who’s gotten your heart all a-flutter. Whatever the task, it’s crucial that you make a good impression, that you do your best to be witty and charming, or at least avoid sounding like a Porky Pig in the midst of a stroke. You open your mouth to speak . . . and suddenly, your words meet an unyielding wall. You struggle for a moment, trying at first to ease the words through, as though smuggling them past some fleshy blockade, and when that fails you resort to force. Your face scrunches up with the effort, but your mouth and tongue ultimately prove uncooperative. As the shattered fragments of your prepared speech finally eject themselves, piece by piece, from your mouth, you notice people are exchanging uncomfortable glances. Are you having a seizure? Are you reeling from some sort of demonic possession? Are your cybernetic circuits glitching? And how are you going to get through both the immediate difficulties and the ensuing embarrassment? 

No, it’s not any of those things. And as for getting through the immediate complications and deflecting the eventual humiliation, it’s tough. As a foremost expert on trying to be witty and charming while your mouth stalls like an old Buick at an intersection, I know a thing or two about the inevitable frustration.

I stutter. This manifests itself as an inability to get my words out when I want them to come out. It’s hardly a new affliction. The ancient Greek philosopher Demosthenes stuttered. (True story: he kept pebbles in his mouth in order to cure his impediment. Speech therapy has sure come a long way since then.) Bruce Willis, Joe Biden, James Earl Jones, Winston Churchill, George VI of Britain, and a host of other famous people have stuttered at some point. Being among such distinguished company, however, doesn’t exactly make me quiver with unbridled gratitude. 

It began at some point after my birth, as these things so often do. I don’t remember a point in my life where I didn’t stutter, so I sorta assume it was always there. We still don’t know exactly what causes it. A little later in life, when other kids asked me why I talked a little funny, I had several answers, blaming my disfluency on things like early-life alien abduction and severe trauma relating to my potty-training, but I still really don’t know what caused it. I went on an LDS mission, during which I met a self-professed shaman who told me—after she told a story about guiding spirits to the Great Beyond and used some sort of crystal to divine my aura—that some ancestor on my mother’s side had eaten some weird herb, which had consequently caused my disfluency problems. (If that isn't a reason not to eat your vegetables, I don’t know what is. You never know what impediments you may be inflicting upon your hapless progeny.) She was the second of four people on my mission who also tried their hand at addressing my speech problem or seeking to cure me, a group that also included a nice Pentecostal couple who tried speaking in tongues (that’s a trippy experience, if you’ve never heard it for yourself), a Navajo medicine man, and an old LDS guy in my last area. 

So I don’t know its causes. All I know is its effects. All I know is that in stressful situations, my tongue and lips go on strike. (No, I'm not going to give them more paid vacation. They should stop asking.) These stressful situations may include, but are not limited to: job interviews, introductions to new people, speaking in front of crowds, speaking in front of attractive women, or speaking in front of any human being I might conceivably desire to impress. As you can imagine, first dates are stressful. (Actually, “stressful” is only a good word to describe my first dates if it’s also the word you use to describe manned Mars landings.) If I’m allowed to get to know and grow comfortable around a person, my stutter tends to ebb, allowing me some freedom to express myself as I want, but by that time the damage is often already done. Incidentally, if you’re a girl/woman and I’m having trouble speaking to you, take it as a compliment. It means I wouldn't mind having you as my co-pilot on an eternal spaceship of love, if you get my meaning. 

For example, the other other night I was at ward prayer, a time-honored institution among LDS singles’ wards designed, apparently, as a sadistic experiment to observe the the pre-mating rituals of a group of sexually repressed young adults. I spotted a girl I’d seen a few times who had struck my fancy. I initially avoided her, because I wasn’t having a good day as far as fluency goes, and I didn’t want her first impression of me to be of a tongue-tied simpleton. (Sometimes I just charge in and talk to girls, but this one was cute enough that I hoped to postpone a first impression until a night where my vocal faculties were a little more cooperative.) However, the fates conspired, and at one point I ran right into her, face to face. I thought I might escape her notice if I didn’t make eye contact, but she cheerfully waved and introduced herself. “I’m Galadriel,” she said, which is obviously made up for her protection and not her real name, unless her parents were super big Lord of the Rings fans, in which case she deserves your sympathy. 

I opened my mouth to answer Galadriel. Predictably, my name refused to come out. The R sound can be really stubborn sometimes. I briefly considered telling her my name was something a little easier to say, preferably something that started with a nice, easy vowel, like Ichabod. But then I’d have to persuade everyone else to start calling me Ichabod, and if we ever got married or anything, I’d have to perpetuate the lie indefinitely, which would just get awkward. So I stuck with Ryan, which took a few seconds to get out. By this time the typical what’s-wrong-with-him look was beginning to contort Galadriel's pretty face, but she recovered quickly. “So what do you do?” 

Once again, the truth was wedged somewhere midway down my trachea. By the time I managed to say writer, Galadriel was looking at me with a sadly bemused look one usually reserves for a puppy with its head stuck in a fence. At this point, a little alarm in my brain was starting to wail, Abort! Abort! I wanted to get out of there—and maybe try talking to her again next week wearing a fake mustache and goatee. At this point, I could also pretend I was having some sort of medical emergency. There were also candles nearby in case I wanted to figure out some way to make it look like a spontaneous combustion. But I was committed, hesitant to light myself on fire, and not very good at faking a heart attack, so I blundered on. Eventually, the conversation ended, Galadriel waved and moved on to talk to somebody else, and I retreated. 

So that’s basically how things are a lot of the time.

Next, let’s get a couple of things straight. First, we do not use the word disability. It’s an inconvenience, an annoyance. Next, if you finish my sentences, I will probably fantasize about stabbing you through the eyeball with a salad fork, or whatever sharp implement happens to be within range. I may cover my annoyance and refrain from causing you any injury, but don’t think you’ve escaped my mental wrath. Finishing a stutter’s sentences deprives him of what little dignity he can manage. Let me do—

do—

do—

—it on my own.

See? You wanted to finish my sentences. You're probably wondering if you've ever been among those to rouse my fury in the past. You may have been. But it's okay. I am merciful, and so I will spare your eyeballs. For now. 

Also, do not exclude me from difficult situations just because you’re worried I might be afraid. I speak in church, I give presentations at work, and I teach Sunday School. My mouth may be afraid of those situations, but I’m not. And whatever you do, do not condescend. I can’t tell you how many well-meaning folks—especially the elders’ quorum president types—have treated me like a charity project of theirs, as though befriending the poor stuttering kid would help them cross off an item on their weekly benevolence checklist. I don’t need your pity. Your friendship is always welcome, but I don’t want it because you’re trying to score some compassion points with the Man Upstairs. 

Living with this . . . ahem, inconvenience . . . can be a little annoying. In addition to my difficulty in the aforementioned situations, it tends to lead to some mild to moderate self-doubt, especially when the women I fancy tend to pass over me in favor of guys who sound a little more like Ryan Gosling and a little less like a video you’re trying to watch on your grandmother’s dial-up Internet. 

And it was tough to be a missionary, believe me. How are you supposed to get out and there and boldly declare glad tidings of great joy when your vocal apparatus behaves a little like the Millennium Falcon with a broken hyperdrive? 

I’d be lying if I said that I never let it get me down. There have been many nights where I’ve punched my pillow like it was the 'roided-up Russian baddie from Rocky IV, pummeling it with all my fury in my desperate need to take my frustrations out on something. I’ve sat in my car and screamed with impotent rage; I’ve wept, wondering what I did to earn this trial. On those countless nights I’ve petitioned God for relief, only to receive apparent silence from the heavens. 

And that’s the end. My life sucks. 

No, I’m just kidding. My life is actually quite wonderful. There are billions of people out there who wish they could live as a stutterer with very few other serious issues in life. So I’m grateful for that. I could be fleeing from my life in the middle of war zone, sleeping on the streets and scavenging from dumpsters, or foraging for meager water in the middle of some desolate village. Or I could be stuck in a thousand less dramatic predicaments, like those poor souls whose job it is to clean up all the confetti in the stadium after a Super Bowl. The point is, I’m doing fine.

Part of that comes from the slow realization of the purpose behind the pain. I’ve gradually seen some of the good that comes from afflictions—avenues in life I’ve taken because of my difficulties, as well as lessons I’ve learned.

About five years ago, I wrote an article while working for the LDS magazine Ensign in which I detailed my struggle with a stutter and related some of the lessons I’ve learned. (You can read it here. The online version doesn't show the visuals, so I included that below.) Because it was in the LDS Church’s official publication and had to therefore appeal to a wide range of people, I had to strip the article of the personality with which I usually try to write. The resulting article is meant to score high on the inspiration scale but is about as entertaining as a hydrogen bomb’s instruction manual. (C'est la vie, I guess.) There was also the matter of length. An Ensign article can only be so long. (I did, however, manage to sneak the symbol of Star Wars’ Rebel Alliance into the Ensign, which I count among my proudest achievements.) 

That was me five or six years ago. I've aged well. 

The full article gets into a lot more depth, but the essence of the lesson I learned goes like this: sometimes God doesn’t release you from your trials. Instead of removing the burden, He strengthens the back that bears them, as the title of the article so pithily declares. I believe our purpose on Earth is to learn all we can so we can be entrusted with much greater blessings later, and only God knows exactly where to break us so he can reconstruct us into something new and improved. He strikes us right at the fault lines of the soul, knowing that when we rebuild with His help, we become greater than we ever were.

Not only that, but sometimes challenges open the doors to other opportunities. I don’t know I would have ever started to write if I never stuttered. When I was a kid, I realized I couldn’t communicate with my mouth as well as I wanted, so I poured my heart into using the written word to convey my feelings. These days, I’m no Shakespeare—I’m not even a J. K. Rowling—but I feel I owe what skills I have to my early frustrations with my speech.

Heck, if I hadn’t stuttered, maybe I would have played sports or something, and maybe I would have been a starting quarterback with dreams of playing college and maybe pro football, and then during my senior homecoming game I might have torn my Achilles tendon and dashed all of my future hopes, and then my high school sweetheart and I would have gotten married, but I would become bitter because of my lost dreams, and she and I would grow distant, and eventually we’d separate and I’d be an old man alone who dreamed all day of his high school greatness and told everyone within earshot of how good I used to be, and sometimes I’d just sit in the dark with my high school trophies and softly sob to myself. 

(Whoa. If you think about it, stuttering really helped me dodge a bullet there.) 

But seriously, there are plus sides to any inconvenience we face in this life. I had a religion teacher in college who suggested that for most of us, if we put all of our challenges into a hat and passed the hat around the room, we’d probably want to take back the original challenges God had assigned to us rather than risk taking on some unknown trials. I believe He knows exactly what it takes for each of us to attain our fullest potential, and our individually tailored challenges are proof of that. 

Even without a religious perspective, your struggles have benefits. You become a stronger person. You become more compassionate. (I have my moments, I suppose.) You become more conscious of others’ struggles, and—ideally—you seek to help them as well. 

Does stuttering kinda suck sometimes? Absolutely. Would I trade it away if I had the chance? Um, yes. Definitely. But am I grateful, in my own way, for my challenges? Yes. I am who I am today because of them, and being who I am today works for me. 

A Beginner's Guide to Marathon Running

Originally published June 1, 2015. 

About nine months ago, I had marvelous idea. Just for fun, I would shoot myself repeatedly in both feet, then bludgeon myself in the gut with a mace, and maybe round things off with a good pummeling from a mafia thug. Or to avoid the hassle of finding medieval weaponry and mob enforcers, I’d just run a marathon. 

I was going through a period in life where I really needed some kind of personal triumph, and for some reason I thought that inflicting unwarranted pain upon myself would be a good idea. I had done a half marathon before, which had overall been a pleasant experience. Half marathons are probably the best kind of race. They’re long enough that you feel a sense of accomplishment but short enough that you don’t spend the last few miles cursing the parents who dragged you into this cruel existence. 

But I wanted to try something a little crazy. And so, in a fit of reckless ambition, I elected to try running a full marathon.  

I ran a few other races during the year in preparation. Prior to the marathon itself, the most miserable I’ve ever been came during the 2014 Zion trail Ragnar relay race, during which an unexpected spring shower became an unexpected spring blizzard while most of us were still realizing we were underdressed for the rain. I only managed to finish two of my three legs of the race before the officials called it off and sent out search and rescue for the runners who were still staggering through the snow; I expect that they're still finding the frozen corpses of the stragglers. I also did Bone and Back, a relay near Idaho Falls; a 5K in Puerto Rico, which felt like a 10K due to the humidity; and a half marathon in Pocatello.

Three to four times a week I ran laps around Liberty Park in Salt Lake. Occasionally, I ran a different course that included some hills, but for the most part Liberty Park's predictability and regular access to running water suited me fine. I also appreciated it because no matter how far I ran, I was never more than half a lap away from my car. Three runs a week were four laps each—or about six miles—but my final run every week was a bit longer. At the beginning of the summer, my long runs were only about 7.5 miles, but by the end of August my long runs had reached a torturous 18 miles. If you add up all the laps I completed that from about March to September, subtracting a few laps here and there to account for the days I missed, I figure I did 380 laps around Liberty Park in 2014. This means I achieved a level of intimacy with Liberty Park that is usually only attainable by squirrels and homeless people. Around and around and around I went, usually accompanied by the complete works of Brandon Sanderson on audiobook.

The fateful day of the race dawned. Technically, I suppose, the day dawned at some point during mile 8 or so, because the race started at an hour when sensible people would be blissfully unconscious. I and a bunch of other aspiring masochists shambled onto a bus, which deposited us at the starting line like load of unwanted puppies on the side of the highway.

At the beginning of the race, we are all shivering, clad in our jackets and tights and happy to crowd into a heat tent with a hundred strangers. The race began, and people began to shed layers as the temperature rose. This resulted in a course littered with more discarded clothing than a Hollywood romance movie.  

The first pain to manifest itself was an ache in my abdomen, as though my long-removed appendix had come back full of vengeance. My feet soon ached in throbbing harmony with my abdomen, and then my legs and lower back gleefully joined in. Somewhere past the halfway point, my original abdominal pain was eventually subsumed into my body's general agony. 

After a while, though I was listening to a favorite audiobook, it made more sense to shut off my brain and retreat into some secluded cavity of my mind, letting reflex govern the incessant thump-thump of my shoes on pavement.

Over the course of the last mile or so, my legs and knees staged a mutiny, threatening to falter unless I acceded to their demands, which basically included resting. But I kept on, mostly because I was pretty sure if I stopped my legs would lock up completely, possibly never to move again.

There is no sweeter sight than the giant blow-up arch that served as the finish line, bobbing gently like inflatable gates to paradise. If there had been luscious maidens waiting there wearing hula skirts and holding plates of barbecued spare ribs, the sight couldn’t have been any more welcome.

For half a week afterward, I hobbled on stiff legs that never quite forgave me for putting them through that ordeal. Most of my toenails turned black and fell off. A pain in my abdomen re-emerged every time I ran for the next few months. 

But do I regret running? Of course not. Because while you’re still running a marathon, your body feels sorta like this. 

But when you’re done, you feel a bit more like this:

How Was Your Trip? (Germany, Switzerland, and Austria Edition)

Arrival

Originally published July 5, 2017.

There’s an old superstition that if you see actor Henry Winkler in an airport bathroom, you’re in for a great European vacation. (Don’t bother looking it up. Just trust me on this one.)

My unforgettable two weeks in Europe got off to an auspicious start when I met the aforementioned actor in the men’s room at LAX. For the more seasoned TV viewers, that’s Arthur Fonzarelli from Happy Days (or for my millennial friends, that’s Jean-Ralphio’s dad from Parks and Recreation and the hilariously incompetent family lawyer from Arrested Development). Probably unaware that he was a harbinger of good fortune, he did me the honor of asking me if the touchless faucets were working for me, which I figure is celebrity-speak for a warm greeting.

With my trip properly blessed by the gods of travel, my hearty band of travelers—myself, my mom, my 18-year-old sister Abby, and my 16-year-old brother Quinn—traveled to Stockholm, Sweden. We didn’t get much of a good look at the country outside the airport windows, but it seemed like a pleasant place. From Sweden we went to Munich. Our first minor hiccup of the trip came when I couldn’t figure out which button in German disengaged the parking brake on our rental car, but crisis was averted and we found our way to a pleasant little hotel on the outskirts of Munich. We would only stay here one night, but we would return to Germany later in the trip.

In the morning we sampled the local bakery and found, to our delight, that German pretzels are made from fairy dust and children’s laughter, in addition to regular flour and salt. No pretzel I’ve ever had is as good as the pretzel bread I had that morning in Munich. We set out toward Switzerland, stopping at two castles on the way. Lichtenstein Castle was notable because, as the tour guide informed us, it once housed the guy who invented the pretzel. Since said baked bread product was still warming our bellies, we were infinitely grateful for that guy’s contributions to culinary science. Next we visited Hohenzollern Castle, a grand fortress looming over a wooded hill. It’s a stately edifice, still in use for ceremonial functions and even a summer camp for needy German children, but as far as we could tell its owners have yet to make contributions to the field of pretzel-making. Keep trying, guys.

This is Hohenzollern Castle. Europe just has castles lying around everywhere like we Idahoans have old tractors. 

Switzerland

That night we slept in Zurich, Switzerland. We wandered the streets around sunset, appreciating the cleanliness and friendly people. The public parks have giant chess sets full of old men of various ethnicities squatting around with looks of intense concentration. Some of them broke concentration long enough to look at us funny when we used the giant chess pieces to play a rousing game of checkers, the uncultured Americans that we were. (In case you’re wondering, I soundly defeated my little brother Quinn.)

From Zurich we headed into Switzerland with the vague intention of finding something called Trift Bridge, a suspension bridge over a 300-foot gorge. For a few hours we corkscrewed around winding mountain passes, each successive turn bringing us to quaint alpine vistas that looked more and more like our mental image of Switzerland. After driving our car past several no-vehicles-past-this-point signs (they were in German, so cut us some slack, please), we found out that the the bridge was only reached via several hours of hiking. After two hours, some ominous-looking stormclouds started to roll in. A seasoned-looking Swiss hiker warned us to turn back, but we pressed on, undaunted, and reached the bridge late afternoon. (They were Swiss stormclouds, after all, so they never really threatened anybody.)

Trift Bridge is a dizzying suspension bridge over a yawning expanse of granite and icy water far below, the kind that conjures up completely irrational images of crocodiles snapping below, a la Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, because most things make me think of pop culture references. My pride compelled me to cross the bridge before my mom and younger siblings, but I did it slowly and while repeating I am not afraid of this under my breath.

Not pictured: certain death far below. I'm not lying whenI say that one of Google's search suggestions for Trift Bridge was "trift bridge deaths."

We stayed that night above Lauterbrunnen Valley, a picturesque Rivendell of a community where the cliffs are practically pinstriped with gorgeous flowing waterfalls. A cable car brought us to our destination, Gimmelwald, a hamlet of less than a hundred people inaccessible by road. The Hotel Mittaghorn, our sleeping accommodations for the next two nights, was a creaky three-story building run by a mostly deaf old Swiss gentleman named Walter Mittler, where the shower was a coin-operated contraption located in one of the other rooms. Whatever inconvenience the showering situation presented, it was more than remedied by the realization that we had wandered into a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle. Our front porch was a portal to another world, a titanic panorama of natural majesty whittled from the bare rock by a masterful Creator.

Anyway, here's the view from our balcony.

The next day began with a morning run up the trail to the neighboring town of Mürren and continued with a hike down from the Männlichen station down to the resort town of Wengen. That hike provided us with our most stunning view yet. Because I’m the super cultured type who occasionally takes a break from books with titles like Monster Hunter Nemesis and Star Wars Battlefront: Twilight Company long enough to delve into great literature, I likened it to a passage from Frankenstein, where the eponymous doctor wanders the Alps in search of solace after abandoning his creation:

"Still, as I ascended higher, the valley ... was augmented and rendered sublime by the mighty Alps, whose white and shining pyramids and domes towered above all, as belonging to another earth, the habitations of another race of beings."

The endless vistas helped me gain a newfound appreciation for the glories of the natural world—and for the powers behind them.  It’s hard not to look out on the majesty of creation and not feel some small measure of reverence. Even the most avowed heathen feels it, even if they don’t choose to ascribe it to the same source I do. There’s no doubt that the mighty glaciers and jagged peaks and filaments of water cascading down the sheer face of the mountain were created by natural processes, nothing unexplainable by science, and yet to me the evidence of a supreme Creator isn’t in the sights themselves but in the irrepressible, undeniable deference to the divine we feel when we gaze upon their wonders.

Or maybe, to paraphrase Paul Bettany’s Chaucer in A Knight’s Tale, sights like these are far too rare to cheapen with heavy-handed words. So here's another picture.

No caption needed. 

Germany 

But I digress. We left Gimmelwald after two days, sad to have spent far too little time in so heavenly a place. We hit the road to Germany again, stopping at the Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen. I’m not ashamed to admit it—I’ve always had a weird fixation with the glory days of lighter-than-air travel. There’s a stately grace to an airship that no fixed-wing aircraft can equal. Or maybe their abrupt departure from public use early last century earned the airship a permanent place on the shelf of mankind’s most tantalizing might-have-beens. Whatever it is, I’d have loved to board one and see the world from within that rumbling chariot of steel and cotton fabric. At least until its gas cells caught fire and exploded and everyone aboard died a horrible death—which, as the museum informed me, was pretty much what zeppelins liked to do from time to time. (You can’t have everything, I guess.)

And so we were back in Munich—for a few days this time. It's a clean, orderly city. A sprawling park near our Airbnb provided a place for us to run every morning, and the fish market in the middle of town afforded us a pleasant place to eat. The town center is home a various cathedrals and medieval-looking buildings. One of the most arresting sights for me was a glass casket in an alcove in St. Peter’s Church, where the bones of a saint named Munditia are coated in jewels. She died a martyr at the hands of the Romans. Hundreds of years later, the Pope decided that dying a martyr was a pretty swell thing to do for the Church, so he showed his appreciation by having her bones plastered with shiny rocks. (If it doesn’t work for me to be frozen in carbonite when I die, Han Solo-style, I would like my next of kin to consider a similar method of interment. Maybe have a bake sale at the funeral to pay for it.)

St. Munditia: rest in bling. 

While in Munich we visited Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, now converted to a sobering memorial and museum. More on that later. It should be noted, however, that we saw Henry Winkler for the second time there. Seriously, what are the odds? The Fonz followed me from Los Angeles to Germany. I thought about approaching him, but there are probably better places for that than outside a Nazi barracks. Regardless, I took it as an omen that our trip was still blessed by the travel gods.

Two nights in Munich later and we were on our way to Vienna. For this we ditched the rental car and took a train. A multi-country European train ride is something everyone should experience at least once, so we did. More than enough for our liking.

Austria

I had heard a lot of favorable things about Vienna, and for the most part it didn’t disappoint. Most of the things people recommended to me when I asked about Vienna dealt with Mozart or The Sound of Music, which are both things I have only a distant, detached appreciation for. So I wasn’t in Vienna to visit any Julie Andrews sites or embed myself in the classical music scene, but there was still plenty to do. For instance, there was the ice cream.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had whatever Viennese ice cream we had, but to say it is the best dessert ever created by the hand of man is to slightly undersell it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the recipe included ground-up Prozac with a sprinkling of that really good cocaine that movie stars take. I may never love a woman like I loved that strawberry ice cream.

This ice cream is fluffier than a box of poodles. And way more tasty.

Months before, my mom, sister and I decided to partake of some real Vienna cultural experience, and I saw that Swan Lake was playing at the Vienna State Opera House, so that seemed like as good an idea as any. For Mom and Abby, this turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip—to see world-class dancers exhibiting nearly inhuman levels of athleticism and grace, accompanied by one of the finest orchestras Europe has to offer. I appreciated everything about it, but it was three hours. I mean, three hours. If I'm gonna watch something for three hours, there better be hobbits destroying a ring in there somewhere. If you don’t know the story—and I still wouldn’t, if I hadn’t read the helpful synopsis in the program, because there’s zero dialogue—Swan Lake is the story of a prince in really tight pants who falls for a girl who’s been turned into a swan by an evil magician who turns girls to swans and keeps them in a gigantic magic swan preserve for some reason. Prince Tight Pants promises to break the spell by falling in love with her, but the evil magician tricks him into falling for her doppelgänger, a mysterious black swan. (Which I guess is a risk when you’re in love with a bird.)

Halfway through, I found myself wondering if there was an alternate production I could watch that just had the highlights, like maybe just one of the times the prince did that twirly thing. Still, there were several truly arresting moments, like the dramatic finale, where the famous theme plays (you know the one, you’ve heard it) and the hapless prince is swept away by a flood conjured by the evil magician, his tragic fate accented by the thrilling swells of the music.

Here's the opera house. I didn't take any pictures of the actual performance. I'm pretty that would be punishable by death.

We went to church in Vienna. Mom convinced me to depart from my preferred travel church policy and go to all three hours, which—are you reading, Mom?—turned out to be a good thing, because one of the people we talked to there recommended that we take the train to the neighboring town of Melk, see the abbey there, and then bike back in the direction of Vienna.

We took our fellow traveler’s advice. Melk Abbey sits atop an outcrop of rock overlooking the Danube. Our favorite feature was its expansive, elegant library, the kind of thing Belle from Beauty and the Beast would really fall in love with a giant hairy buffalo-man for. But the best part was the ride back. We rented bikes and cycled twenty miles or so along the Danube, where every bend in the river concealed a new castle and every pit stop proved to be another charming Austrian town.

Here's me biking by the Danube. This is just before I was passed by another pair of extremely fit septuagenarian cyclists. 

Our last night was spent in the Klastergastof Raitenhaslach, a mouthful of a monastery partially converted into a lovely hotel. There were no monks in sight while we were there, but upon checking out our hosts proudly presented us with some monk-brewed beer. None of our party are beer drinkers, but our hosts were so earnest that we didn’t dare reject the gift. We ended up giving both bottles to our very appreciative taxi driver. He didn’t speak much English, but I guess the gift of alcohol is a universal language.

The monastery took a leaf from Gaston's book, using antlers in all of their decorating. 

The journey home would have benefited from another Henry Winkler sighting. Several hours on a train took us back to Munich, where we flew to Sweden, then to Malaga, Spain. You can imagine our sheer delight when we checked our itinerary and realized we had a seven-hour overnight layover in Spain before our long transatlantic flight. (It was similar to the delight you might feel if somebody told you it would be necessary to rip off all of your body hair with duct tape, or maybe watch an Adam Sandler movie marathon.) We were already plumb tuckered out (a phrase that leaps inexplicably to mind), but no weariness is enough to make the prospect of sleeping on an airport floor appealing.

We soon traded not sleeping in Malaga to not sleeping on the plane to Los Angeles. And, just like me on the ride back, you’re probably ready to be done with this, so let’s just get to the end.

We made it back an indeterminate time after leaving Germany. Honestly, I have no idea. Between the time change, several trains, and four flights, our journey home lasted anywhere between a day and the length of the entire unabridged works of Tolstoy on audiobook. But in the end we staggered back home to our own beds. Thrilling vistas are nice, but sleeping in your own bed after a long journey, it turns out, has a certain thrill of its own.

Afterword: Dachau

It seemed a sacrilege to sandwich my experiences at the former Nazi concentration camp between jokes about funeral bake sales and ice cream cocaine, so there's one more section this post, presented out of chronological order.

This arresting sculpture captures some of the horror we can't afford to forget at Dachau.

The words “Arbeit Macht Frei”—“Work Makes Freedom”—are wrought in iron over the gates of Dachau, after which you stroll through a devastating tableau dedicated almost entirely to man’s utter inhumanity. It’s hard to stomach at times, but it’s worth the visit. At Dachau, the Nazis not only subjected prisoners to hellish conditions, but they also used their victims for human experimentation and denied them the most basic human dignities. It was my second visit to Dachau, but the impact was no less vivid for me.

I don't know which was harder to believe—that my fellow humans were forced to endure such horrors, or that it was other fellow humans that inflicted those horrors upon them. My brief time at Dachau made me reflect, readjust my perceptions of the world around me, and resolve to do what I could next time I saw the chance to keep another Dachau from happening.

There's no denying that such a shift in perception is part of what makes travel appealing. It's not the only reason, of course—who doesn't go for the new cuisine, Instagram-friendly vistas, or the chance to tell stories? I sure do. But I count a trip successful when something happened that forced me to shift my view of the world around me, to add a few strokes to the mental picture I've painted about humanity. That's something no hashtag can accomplish.
 

Happy Holidays from the Kunz Family (2016)

Originally published December 13, 2016. 

I was tasked with writing the family Christmas card again this year. Here it is, in its joyfully hyperbolic entirety:

Hello! A full year—otherwise known as the time between new Star Wars movies—has passed since our last card, so it’s time to update you, our faithful Christmas card recipients, on the happenings in the lives of the Kunz family.

Eric's demanding job as a CPA necessitates his frequent trips to Salmon, Idaho, where he recovers from the rigors of work by engaging in the kind of hard-core fishing you usually associate with manfully bearded, dentally challenged, wild-eyed recluses named Earl or Jim Bob on the Discovery Channel. If you see him, tell him to come home and clean his fish.

Trisha performed in a local production of Dancing with the Stars. She dusted off long-retired dancing skills to capture the imagination of a small town before losing to the local Zumba instructor. If you think it sounds like the plot of some inspirational ‘80s cult classic with a Cyndi Lauper soundtrack, you’re not far off. You should probably buy the rights to make that movie before someone else does.

Ryan occasionally does some cool stuff at his ad agency but is still waiting for someone to pay him to write the stuff he really wants to write. He is an aspiring fantasy novelist, which means he can Google stuff like “how to preserve a severed head” and not feel weird about it. On a totally unrelated note, he’s not married.

Reilly is going to physical therapy school. His life got even busier this year when he and his wife Briana brought into the world the first Kunz grandchild, little McKay, who has quickly become everyone's favorite family member. He recently spoke his first words: “Let it be known that I, McKay Kunz, do hereby state without equivocation that Ryan is my favorite uncle.” He’s such a precocious little cutie, isn’t he?

Connor, if his Instagram is any indication, spends about 80 percent of his time hiking across spectacular alpine vistas. We think he also attends school at BYU-Idaho, too. We haven’t been able to prove conclusively that he’s skipping class to go mountaineering, but the wolves he hangs out with aren’t denying it.

Dillon is a sophomore at BYU-Idaho, where he keeps busy working three jobs and is soon transferring to BYU. However, his studies may have to be put on hold soon, as he was recently elected president of the United States this year and now holds supreme executive power in the most powerful country on Earth. Okay, maybe not, but you can’t tell me you wouldn’t prefer him to the people who actually ran. (Ooh, non-partisan political joke! Zing!)

This year Abigail claimed the title of Miss Idaho’s Most High Outstanding Grand Young Woman Chancellor of Supernal Distinguishment, or something like that. Honestly, it’s sorta hard to keep track of all of Abby’s achievements. These days, we just sorta go with it. Go, Abby!

Quinn, who runs cross country and pursues a photography hobby, is also about to cross the twin thresholds of adolescent achievement—driving and dating. Now that he has his learner’s permit, you should walk up to him and make a joke about how you’d better stay off the roads now. He’ll love that and commend you for your originality.

Well, that’s us—stay tuned for next year! Will Dad abandon his career and retreat into a cabin in the woods? Will Mom’s foray into the reality show scene lead to fame, fortune, and her eventual fall from grace, after which she'll appear on the actual Dancing with the Stars? Will Ryan meet the woman of his dreams, publish a bestseller, and finally grow a full beard? (Two out of three would be acceptable.) What happens to their relationship when Reilly and Briana find themselves expecting octuplets? Will Connor finally surrender to the call of the wild and run naked with his wolf pack? Can Dillon’s calm diplomacy defuse the tense situation in the Middle East? What rivals will Abby have to ruthlessly eliminate on her ascent to the top? Will Quinn woo all the ladies and get married before Ryan does? Find out in next year’s Christmas card!

How Was Your Trip? (Britain Edition)

Originally published September 6, 2015.

Any mention of the mythic land of Britain has always evoked images of castles perched moodily on windswept moors, boy wizards and boy bands, licenses to kill, detectives in deerstalker hats, blue police boxes, coconut-laden swallows, and a couple of royal babies who have got to have realized by now that they pretty much won the lottery as far as birth circumstances are concerned. I’ve been captivated by all things British (and especially Scottish) since I was young, and my steady diet of British pop culture only increased my desire to visit the magical land where people somehow manage daily to survive despite driving on the left side of the road.

And so, about a year ago, I made up my mind that I would make a pilgrimage to that extraordinary place. I gathered an intrepid fellowship consisting of two of my brothers, Connor and Dillon, and my cousin Zack. After months of planning, we departed for Britain near the middle of August. 

Britain is a wonderful country, especially when you get over the fact that its every inhabitant is on a single-minded mission to take all of your money. The exchange rate during out stay was about 1.5 American dollars to every British pound, which means a decent plate of fish and chips costs about fifteen to the twenty dollars. Fuel costs £1.13 per liter, which adds up to a punishing £4.28 ($6.42) per gallon. And then there’s the cost of the attractions. Getting into Buckingham Palace, for instance, is a whopping £35, which perhaps offers insight into the source of the Queen’s wealth.

Despite this, everywhere we went, Britain was full of charming, delightful people. I never tired of hearing their pleasant accents, even if I occasionally had to squint, tilt my head, and ask them to repeat themselves. 

Among the first things we saw upon arriving in Britain was the Tower of London. There we saw the crown jewels, and like any normal people we immediately began plotting an elaborate heist to steal them. We proceeded to visit most of the stops along London’s tourist trail. I fondly recall the moment we came out of the Westminster Underground station and saw the majestic Palace of Westminster and Big Ben clock tower, larger than life and ready to hit us over the head with that “Holy-crap-we’re-really-in-London” feeling. 

We saw the city from the apex of the London Eye, the massive Ferris wheel beside the Thames river. We attended an Anglican service at Westminster Abbey (in addition to an LDS service at the Hyde Park chapel) and watched people attempt to foment street riots at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park. We took the London tube—the subway—everywhere, and I remain impressed that such a large city can have such an efficient, clean, and comprehensive rail system. To whatever British person designed it, nice work. You deserve an extra crumpet. 

Driving, however, is another cup of afternoon tea entirely. After a few days in London, we rented a car and made the first leg of our drive across Britain. This involved getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road. Where America separates two lanes going the same direction by a white line and two lanes going opposite directions by a yellow line, Britain uses white for everything, which forces you into a fun guessing game about whether the lane you’re turning into goes the desired way or dumps you into oncoming traffic. On at least one occasion, I turned onto an innocuous-enough lane that turned out to be a one-way street. One British driver launched into a series of helpful gesticulations to inform me that I was an idiot, probably assuming that I, as an American, lacked the Sherlock Holmes-like ability to deduce it by myself. 

And that doesn’t even begin to touch on the fun that results from having a car with a steering wheel on the right side of the vehicle. Driving on the left side of the road is one thing, but American drivers have been conditioned to guide their vehicles while sitting on the left side of the car. This means there’s a certain place for your body and a certain place for the rest of the car, and as long as you keep your body positioned in the lane the rest of the car will sit where it’s supposed to. Driving on the right side of the vehicle throws everything off. If you position your body where you’re used to positioning it in the lane, it means half of your car is in the next lane over. Zack did a lot of the driving, and we worked out a signal to let him know he had started to drift over and was about to lose a mirror to whatever obstructions lay on the left shoulder of the road. 

Once we were out of the city, we drove toward Stonehenge. There we paid an exorbitant sum to hop on a bus and stare pensively at some large rocks in the middle of a field. (We tried to sacrifice a virgin on the Druidic altar, but it was £30 per virgin sacrifice and we’re not exactly made of money.)   

From Stonehenge we headed to Conwy, Wales. The road from London to Conwy took us through picturesque little villages with names  where we spent a pleasant night. As we approached the city, we amused ourselves by trying to pronounce the Welsh words on street signs, like “Mold yr Wyddgrug." (I later looked up how to pronounce that one, and it sounds very little like the strange guttural sounds my unpracticed lips made when trying to say it.) In the morning, we toured the nearby castle. Most of the ancient city walls are still standing. This proved to be one of our favorite castles we’d see on the trip. It was ruined enough to retain a sense of authenticity, unspoiled by modern enhancements, but complete enough that it didn’t require extensive imagination to visualize what it must have looked like when it still guarded against invading armies. 

A night in Edinburgh, Scotland, followed. Edinburgh is a charming city, eager at every turn to show visitors what it means to be Scottish. Lest you forget where you are, there is a shop or two about every twenty feet dedicated to assuring that no tourist leaves without authentic tartan kilts, scarves, and hats.  

This tower looks rather ominous at nighttime, prompting my brother Connor to dub it the “Sith temple.” It’s actually a monument to the great Scottish author Sir Walter Scott, the guy who's credited with revitalizing the image of Scotland in the popular imagination. 

After Edinburgh, we left the metropolitan Scotland behind and headed for the austere expanses of the highlands. The roads, narrow enough to feel a little perilous, shrank to basically the size of a bike lane in the States. On both sides of us, undulating green hills, framed by stone fences and flecked with sheep, unfolded. You know when people make references to “God’s green earth”? I’m convinced that the divinely favored landscape they’re referring to is the Scottish highlands, a verdant Elysium that tends to rob you of any response other than “Whoa.” I’m specifically referring in this case to the stretch near Glencoe on the way to Fort William, which inspired us to pull over three times in the space of half an hour to take pictures and just gape. 

While Scotland’s people welcomed us with smiling faces and outstretched arms, at the same time Scotland’s terrain did its best to let us know we were unworthy creatures unfit to defile its unspoiled paradise with our presence. From the beginning of the planning process, one of our goals was to spend a night camping in the rugged, mist-shrouded wilds of Britain. You know those scenes in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows where Harry, Ron, and Hermoine spend half the book camping? We sort of hoped it would be like that, though admittedly with an unfortunate lack of Emma Watson. Our hopes were kindled anew when signs informed us that scenes from the Harry Potter movies had indeed been filmed nearby. 

After driving around for an hour looking for a campsite, we eventually found a spot where we could pull over and set up the sleeping bag and tarpaulins that would protect us from the elements. (We didn’t want to being a tent, because anything we brought along with us would have to be dragged around Britain for a week and a half.) No sooner had we set up the tarp than we were introduced to the highlands’ dominant lifeforms: the midges.

The Harry Potter movies neglected to mention that the marshier areas of the highlands are the dominion of midges. Everything in Scotland is just a little more rugged, and that includes the insect life. The midges form swarms thicker than anything I’ve seen in the States, impenetrable little storm clouds hellbent on gnawing your face off. We quickly realized that sleeping outside would expose us to the wrath of these tiny satanic legions, so Zack, Connor and I decided to sleep in the car. Our rental car was a Jetta hatchback, which isn’t usually designed for three grown men to sleep in, but we managed it, because the alternative was a slow and painful death. Dillon, however, weighed his options and decided it would be more comfortable to sleep outside underneath the tarp than in close proximity with three other men. I actually slept fine until a few hours later, when a panicked Dillon jumped inside the car and told us he’d heard the footsteps of something large outside the vehicle. It was too dark to see what it was, but something then brushed up against the side of the car, setting off the car alarm. Nobody had the heart to tell Dillon to suck it up and sleep outside, so we spent the rest of the night huddled together, our knees in each other’s faces, listening to mysterious shuffling sounds outside and wondering if the midges and the large unidentified creature would kill each other in a titanic battle that would maybe allow somebody to sleep outside. 

In the morning, we found the midges buzzing around the desiccated corpse of a bear. Just kidding. The mysterious large animal seems to have escaped. The midges, however, were so thick that we didn’t bother putting our gear and tarps away: we simply threw everything into the back, unpacked and unrolled, and drove several miles until the midges were far behind. However, the fearful specter of the midges loomed over the rest of the trip. Even our brief time spent at the mercy of the midges the night before as we set up the tent resulted in tiny bites that didn’t stop itching for a week. 

Here we are hiding inside the car from the midges.

In the morning, we set out to climb Ben Nevis, the highest peak in Britain. I’ve climbed Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the continental US, and ascended dozens of smaller peaks over the years, so I thought that one measly little British peak wouldn’t pose that much of a challenge. In some ways I was right—but while the elevation gain probably wasn’t enough to deter a hiker who takes decent care of himself, the weather kicked our butts. It was beautiful, of course, even cold and wet as it was. As we began our ascent a halo of mist encircled us, the slopes of the mountains disappearing into the mist's hazy embrace. Higher on the mountain, the mist swallowed everything, and then omnipresent drizzle turned into a pummeling deluge. We were a little over halfway before we decided that we were unprepared for the weather and risked hypothermia if we tried to gain the top. (Or maybe we would have been just fine. We’ll never know now, will we?)

In other words, Scotland as a whole pretty much pulled up its kilt and mooned us. Nevertheless, when we finished our time in Scotland, we were left wanting more. Four days is too few to spend in such a remarkable place. 

On the final day in Scotland, we visited Loch Ness and several of its attendant Nessie exhibits. This yellow submarine was used back in the '60s to search the depths of the loch for the monster and gave us all a chance to make any Beatles references we'd been holding onto the whole time. 

We had a pleasant night’s sleep aboard a sleeper train from Inverness back to London, where we spent two more days. In those two days we managed to finish up our list of London to-dos, including the British Museum, seeing The Phantom of the Opera in the West End, the Churchill War Rooms, and the Imperial War Museum. Phantom is the timeless story of the love between a possibly underage girl with father figure issues and the creepy, sociopathic stalker guy who lives in her basement. But seriously, folks, the moment when the chandelier rises from the auction room floor, blazing to life to the keening accompaniment of the organ, is pure delight.  

After a week and a half in this wonderful, scenic, friendly, slightly overpriced land, we came back to the States. Someday I'll return to ride the London tube and walk the highlands of Scotland again, but until then, I'll just have to drive on the left side of the road occasionally and pretend it's Britain.