Day 10: Day Off

12/29:Today we decided it was too foggy to really do any productive touring. We basically just sat around the house playing cards. Kyle made soup with a bunch of leftover stuff and sausage. It was good. That's really about it, just took a day off because of the weather. We ended the night by watching Eddie Izzard's "Dress to Kill" on YouTube. Hopefully tomorrow's weather will be better and we can drive 2 hours south and explore Rome!

Day 9: More Hilltop Excursions

12/28: Dad took Gregg to the airport at 4AM, so the rest of the family slept in and started the day late. We left the villa around 1-1:30 in search of more hilltop towns to spend the afternoon investigating.
We first ended up in Lucignano, a town Mom and Dad tried but failed to find during their summer visit. They had actually found a different town named Luciano with a sign saying "For Residents Only" and were told to leave when they started touring it! This Lucignano was the one in the guidebook though, and it was pretty neat. It was built as 4 concentric circles inside a fortified wall. We wandered the streets and into a few churches and other buildings. Even the churches in these small towns are really ornate. That surprised me. Most of the shops were closed, either because it was Monday or because we were there during Italian lunchtime, but Emily did manage to find an open pottery shop and bought some ceramics.
The next hilltop town we came across was nowhere near as interesting as Lucignano. Monte San Savino was bigger, but there didn't seem to be as much to do. Most of the shops here were closed too, but we still managed to wander in an out of churches. There were multiple churches in the same square, which is different than the other towns we had visited. It was about 4:30 and we were getting a little hungry. Emily found a restaurant that opened at 5, so we wandered a bit more waiting as the rain slowly started to come down. The weather had been pretty good for the day up until this point. Turns out the restaurant opened at 19:00, which is 7, not 5, so we just packed back into the car and headed back to the villa.
We decided to give Civitella a shot for dinner, as it is the next hill over from our villa. We pulled up at 5:30, and asked the man working the small grocery shop that we had been using if any restaurants were open. As luck would have it, he was friends with the owner of one of the restaurants, and we were told to come back at 7. We returned to the villa and played cards and sat about until dinner.
Dinner was fantastic! The restaurant, L'Antivo Borgo, (we speculated it meant the Old Mill since there was a giant grinder inside) was really small, able to hold 40 people tops. The owner was the waiter and his mother and I think wife worked the kitchens. He spoke excellent English and explained everything on the menu in great detail, which was very helpful. We started with a basket of bread and butter with bits of truffle in it. We had lentil dish on the house as an appetizer, then my first meal arrived: a beautiful lobster pasta, using home made pasta. Kyle's first meal was an absurd amount of foie gras. The look on his face was priceless. For the second course, Dad and I were going to split a bistecka like we did earlier. It ended up feeding all 5 of us easily, with leftovers! The medium rare was actually medium rare this time. The meat was like butter. I know people say that for really good steaks, but I've truly experienced a steak that really melted in your mouth. It was very similar to the foie gras, if you can believe that! For dessert, we had a complimentary creme brule and some complimentary after dinner cookies as well. Kyle also ordered a dessert, but I've forgotten what it was.
The owner was friendly and chatty, the atmosphere was amazing, and the food was to die for. If anyone winds up in Tuscany near Arezzo, go to Civitella and try L'Antivo Borgo. The prices weren't even outrages, it ended up being 250 euro for the 5 of us, with 2 bottles of wine. I think we are going back for New Years (which the owner kept calling "thirty-one" which I thought was interesting) and then watch the fireworks in the valley from the hilltop.

Day 8: Pisa

12/27: Today we toured Pisa. We got a fairly early start out of the villa, and arrived in Pisa about 2 hours later, with some slight trouble with roundabouts. Italian signage is just terrible.
I never realized that the tower was right next to 3 other landmarks. I had always pictured it standing (leaning) by itself, but it's right behind a duomo, which is right behind a baptistry, which is right next to another building that housed some graves, including Fibonnaci's, and some beautiful frescoes. We explored that baptistry first. Another example of the ridiculous splendor of the church during that time. It was a very dark structure, but the acoustics were something else. While we were on the second floor looking down into the baptistry fount, one of the museum guides came in and chanted something in Italian or Latin and it just filled up the whole place. Hard to explain in words, but it was a neat experience.
We walked around that fresco building next while waiting for our appointment time to actually climb the tower. We also attempted to tour the duomo, but it since it was Sunday there was an actual Catholic mass going on.
It was more challenging to climb up that I had imagined, and it was a little unnerving, for me at least. I made it to the top of the bell tower section, but did not go as high as Gregg, Em, and Kyle. I did not know that the tower was a bell tower either. The view of Pisa was amazing. You could see mountains in the distance, the small Italian buildings of the town, and the massive structures of the duomo and baptistry. It was incredible.
After climbing down, which was much easier than going up, we stopped for a late lunch. I ordered a salami pizza and tripe in tomato sauce, thinking the pizza was smaller than it actually was. I ended up sharing it with the family because it was a decent size. I also had some of Gregg's veal, Emily's pasta in boar sauce, Dad's seafood pasta, and Mom's pasta in wild hare sauce. And red wine to wash it all down, of course.
After lunch we finally were able to see the duomo. More splendor of the church on full display. The pullpit was nearly identical to the one we saw in Florence, and that was because the son had done the Florence one and modeled it after his father's work on Pisa one. The Pisa one had one major difference though, it showed pagan gods in the architecture, which was both interesting and odd. The ceiling was exquisite, but too dark to really capture well in a photo.
The last thing we saw was a museum behind the tower. It was full of the priests' vestments, sculpture of Roman gods, Egyptian hieroglyphics, a collection of huge prayer and song books that we had seen in other places, and more paintings depicting saints and such. The museum courtyard is supposed to have the best view of the tower, so we checked that out as well. I tried to do the cliched picture of holding up/pushing over the tower, but Mom just couldn't find a good angle, no matter how hard we tried. Oh well.
We wrapped up the day by buying a few souvenirs then headed back to the villa. For once, we had great weather the entire day!

Day 7: Boxing Day at Montepulciano

12/26: Today was pretty laid back, but we did manage to check out Montepulciano, the #4 hilltop town in Italy as rated by our guidebook. It was a nice day when we left the villa. It only took about an hour to get to the fortified hilltop town, and that's only because we got slightly lost by following signs to the motorway. We ended up going in a circle, but followed the signs correctly. Italian roads are screwy.
We stopped for lunch a few minutes away from the town at what turned out to be a fantastic restaurant. Dad ordered 2 bisteckas, steaks that were over 1kg each for the family. We ordered pasta and I had some sausage as well. We ordered medium rare for the steaks, but either that means something different over here or she only understood the rare part because they were very bloody. We topped everything off with vino rosso, just like with every other meal. We also had Vino Santo, a dessert wine, for the first time. I love sweet, dessert wines. I bought a bottle on the way out for home.
By this time the weather had turned sour and we drove up the rest of the hill to get a little touring done before the weather got really nasty. We ended up only staying an hour or so, but we did manage to see 2 churches and a fantastic view before the fog rolled in. We drove home in the rain, but the fog disappeared before we climbed the hill/mountain to our villa.
The rest of the evening was uneventful. Dad had a small tumble getting firewood, but it wasn't serious, and we spent the rest of the evening watching Muppet Show clips next to a roaring fire.

Day 6: Christmas at the Villa

12/25: Buon Natale everyone! We spent Christmas at the villa, opening presents in the family tradition. Emily, as the youngest, had sorting duties, and then we each took turns opening our presents. We had some weird weather for about an hour, where it was nice, then poured, then was really windy. Gregg took off for a run while Mom and I walked the dirt road around the mountain. Kyle cooked what we thought was a Christmas goose, but actually turned out to be a duck. Oh well, it was still delicious.
This year, my "stocking" was a Guinness pint glass celebrating the 250th anniversary of the brewery. It was filled with kangaroo jerky, a block puzzle, a Cadbury bar, a Greek alcohol called Ouzo, Guinness luggage tags, and Smarties! Under the tree I got two T shirts from Mom and Dad, one of Carcassone and one of the first newspaper advertisement for Guinness, an Ohio Places calendar from the McGinnis family, the New Super Mario Bros for Wii from Gregg, a Wiimote charger from Emily, a $50 Visa card from Auntie Mona and Uncle Rick, a $50 Papa's gift card from Uncle Alan, and a black pepper shaker in the shape of a bishop chess piece as a lagniappe gift from the parents. Most importantly, I got a trip to Italy! Dad received Bob Dylan's Christmas album. It is fantastically terrible, he and I enjoyed listening to it but I think it got on Mom's nerves quickly.
Dinner was delicious. Kyle cooked us duck, potatoes, leeks and beets (which I didn't care for), and brussels sprouts. For desert, the villa owners had left as a pannnetoni, which was like a raisin cake. Mom and the bright idea of soaking it in brandy and having Kyle lighting it on fire. It was really anti climactic. Instead of a big flame, the cake just absorbed the booze. The cake wasn't very good, but was also had champagne and Christmas biscuits to finish the meal.
It was a very laid back day.

Day 5: Florence

12/24: We got a good start to the day and left the Villa a little after 9. It was my turn to lay down in the boot, which is good because my back had started to hurt and sitting in the middle would have been unpleasant. Our first order of business was another airport stop to check for our lost luggage. Kyle and Emily got their bags in 15-20 minutes, and we rejoiced, but the airport told Gregg that his luggage had arrived, but was not in the lost and found. We waited another 40 minutes or so for them to find the final bag. It actually came through on a flight while we were waiting, so that was lucky. We finally had all our bags! Dad took the luggage back to the villa with the plan of meeting us at the square where the statue of David is, and the rest of us took a cab into downtown Florence.

We started our Florence trek at the Uffizi museum, where the famous Birth of Venus, or as Dad refers to it, Venus on the Half-shell, painting by Botticelli resides. We tried to absorb a lot of culture in a short amount of time, so we didn't get to fully appreciate everything. We also got burned out on seeing countless renditions of the Madonna and Child. I was excited to see some of Raphael's work too. He is my favorite painter. After our museum tour, we had a light lunch at the museum rooftop cafe.

Next, we examined the statues in the square outside the Ufiizi, especially the replica statue of David put in the square in 1910 (the real one is in the Academy Museum in Florence, that we didn't get to see), a statue of Bacchus, and an awesome statue of Neptune. There were a few other mythological statues as well, like a centaur being killed and Medusa being beheaded.

Dad was still stuck in traffic on his way to the villa, so the rest of us headed over to the Ponte Vecchio, or Old Bridge.

We wandered in and out of small shops on the way to the bridge. The Ponte Vecchio was also lined with touristy shops and Mom told us it was similar to what London Bridge was like before it collapsed.

Dad was still in transit when we finished with the Ponte Vecchio, so we hiked over to the Duomo of Florence. It was massive, and carved of beautiful green, pink, and white marble. The outside just kept going and going, I think its the largest cathedral I've ever been in. After seeing the ridiculous splendor of the outside, I had high hopes for the inside. They were somewhat dashed however, as the inside was far less impressive than the inside of the Siena Duomo. I guess all the funds were used making the outside extravagant. You can really see why the Reformation happened after viewing all of the Church's splendor in person.

Dad finally met up with us at the Duomo, and we headed back towards the car in the rain. The weather had been gloomy but the rain held off until late in the day, so we were kind of fortunate. He had parked near a fort, and if there was time we were going to take a look around

We ended up wandering into the person church of the Medici's instead, with parts designed by Michelangelo and Donatello. We saw the final resting place of one of the Medicis. We also bought a ticket to the crypt around the corner, which had holy relics, including a bone of Saint Peter. Pretty neat stuff. It was too dark to see everything surrounding the church though, and we ended up missing Michelangelo's staircase, which is in the guidebook as a thing to see. Oh well.

After that we walked towards the car in search of a restaurant to eat dinner. We didn't find one and just drove home in the treacherous fog. It was quite an ordeal driving up the foggy mountain that the villa is on in the dark, but we made it in one piece thanks to some navigating by Gregg.

We had our traditional salmon pickings for dinner and opened one present for Christmas Eve. I got a very nice hand made coffee mug from Tip City, Ohio, courtesy of the McGinnis family

Day 4: Siena

12/23: *side-note: I keep forgetting to blog this, but I think the most underrated thing about Europe is the Fanta. It's like Orangina, but better. A simply incredible beverage. *end side-note*

Today we audibled to a trip south to Siena instead of doing some sight seeing in Florence and hitting the airport on the way home. We checked for flights coming in from Amsterdam or Rome, and they weren't until late in the evening or at night. Tomorrow we'll hit Florence and the airport. The 6 of us piled into our 5 seater, with Emily hiding in the seatless boot, and took off for a day trip to Siena.

Siena was only about 50km away from the base of our hilltop villa, but it took about an hour to get there since we took a scenic route on country roads. Siena turned out to be 1 of my 5 favorite cities.

The town of Siena is built into a hillside, and spirals downwards. The roads and city are actually curved, which was really neat to see. We eventually found parking at the top of a hill and meandered down towards the Piaza del Campo, the famous square in Siena. There are horse races around the square and recently it featured Daniel Craig in Quantum of Solace. The curved streets and buildings presented some really fantastic architecture as well. The town hall/museum building at the edge of Piaza del Campo was really neat. It had a 400 step clock tower to climb up, but when Gregg and I got to the second level, about 50 steps up, we realized we had to pay to advance further. We retreated, but in hindsight I would have liked to have seen the view and square from way up there.

After that, we split up and wandered the city little before meeting back up at a cafe on the edge of the square. Tuscany is a region known for its pottery and ceramics, and they were everywhere in souvenir shops. Not tacky and actually quite expensive, but very gorgeous works. I ended up picking up a Vespa shaped coffee mug for myself, and looked for some gifts to bring home.

For lunch, we met up at a cafe and I had a pretty simple salami sandwich. It was good, better than most salamis in America. The Italians sure have figured out hams and sausages...Nobody ordered anything crazy except Kyle's liter of beer.

After lunch, we hiked up the streets to the Duomo, a magnificent cathedral. The marble work was incredible, outside the columns alternated pink and white, and inside the columns were striped black and white. The marble on the floor showed illustrations, but some of them were covered up by cardboard (including the Slaughter of the Innocents), for upcoming Christmas Mass. In part 2 of our tour we saw the original statues and gargoyles from the cathedral in a separate building. The ones on the cathedral are actually replicas. Part 3 brought us to a building that was supposed to be part of the cathedral, but was never finished. Inside there, we found some relics and bones of saints and just cool, ornate artifacts. We also climbed up a tower to get a fantastic view of Siena. Finally, the last part of the tour brought us to a baptistry. The artwork on the ceiling was unique because there is an alligator "hiding" someone in it. Kyle spotted it first.

After our 4 part tour, we wandered the streets some more, popped into a few more shops, and then tried to find our way back to the car. We got lost, of course, but ended up stumbling into another massive church named San Francesco. It was huge, dark, and a large section of it was empty. I don't think it was a real touristy church, but it certainly was massive.

We finally found our way to the car, after popping into a few final shops, and then headed back to our villa.

Finally, a full day of touring that the whole family enjoyed.

Day3: Vinci and another airport trip

12/22: Today we had a lateish start, but it seems as though I have overcome jet lag, which is good. It had been rainy all night, so when we woke up most of the snow had been replaced with fog. It stayed foggy and rainy the whole day, which was not pleasant to drive in, especially with the Italian lunatic and their road systems. We decided to head out to Vinci, Leonardo's birthplace, to see the Leonardo Da Vinci machines museum. First, there was an accident on the road that delayed us about 30 min, then we found a nice restaurant to pop in for lunch. We ordered some appetizers and ended up with a cheese pizza, some weird meat paste that we suspect was boar (looked like chili/dog food), some bread, and some proscuitto. For the entry, I ordered a wild boar dish. It was really good.

After lunch we hit up the museum. What a neat place! There were models of his machines and video demonstrations of how they worked. I never realized how many of his machines were either designed to aid in the construction of cathedrals or were very military focused. After the museum we decided to swing by the Florence airport for a third time to see if Gregg's, Kyle's, and Emily's bags had arrived.

Getting to the airport was quite an ordeal. We hit rush hour traffic, especially where the toll booth goes from 13 or so lanes down to 2! We also had a rough time going through the round abouts trying to get to the airport because the other end of the round about spit people onto a major highway. It was a really dumb and poorly designed road system.

We finally got to the airport, and only had a 10 minute or so wait before a very nice man (unlike our previous encounters) told us that all the flights from Amsterdam during the day had been canceled, so our bags were still stuck there. He was nice enough to let us around and have a look, but we didn't find anything. Europe is in the middle of a blizzard that they are not prepared for, and bags (and hundreds of others) are taking the hit. Hopefully they will be there tomorrow.

Tomorrow our plan of attack is to call the big museum in Florence and see if we can schedule a tour. If yes, we'll head to Florence for the day and end with another airport run. If not, we'll drive a bit further and head out to Pisa, where we can be unique and hold up the tower...or push it over...

The weather is nasty for the next week, which is unfortunate. Mom is not very pleased, but it is supposed to rain through the rest of December. This is very odd weather for the region at this time of year, and we are just stuck with. Hopefully the bags come in soon and we can focus on actually spending our time touring instead of planning around airport runs.

Florence Airport, take 2

But first, some light village hopping. We started the day off with a trip to the small village of Civitella. It was an ancient walled city dating back to the 1300s, but wasn't really touristy, which was nice. We bought some groceries from a very small shop and wandered the village for a little. Next, we tried to drive to another small nearby village to find some lunch, but abandoned that plan when the roads got too bad. We turned around and found another small village and picked a restaurant that turned out to be the local hotspot. Dad, Kyle, and I all ended up ordering the same meal: a chicken, duck, and rabbit, which was excellent with the roasted potatoes on the side. We still had a lot of time before Gregg was scheduled to land, so we took another car ride to Arezzo, the closest "big" city. There was some history to see, but the traffic was terrible and it took too long to get to the city to actually get out and wander for a bit, so we just did tourism by car, then headed back to the villa.

I took a 3 hour nap, then Dad, Emily, Kyle, and I went back to the airport to grab Gregg and hopefully our luggage. Here's where the nightmare starts up again...

Kyle and I get in the baggage lost and found line while Dad and Em waited for Gregg to land. We waited for about 30-40 mins in line before finally be able to talk to someone, or so we thought. ..we got up the window, and the lady took a break. The lost and found closes at 8, and it was 7:20 when she decided to take a break. After 10 minutes of waiting and not knowing what to do, another attendant came by and tried to tell me through sound proof glass that it would take another 10-15 minutes before someone could help us....awesome. Finally a 3rd lady came and handled our claim. By this time Gregg had landed and his bag was also missing in action. Kyle and I found 1 out of our 3 missing bags while Gregg filed a claim for his bag. 2 bags down, 3 to go.

We got back to the Villa and Mom cooked spaghetti. We had wine and then talked for awhile, all of us in one room for the first time in awhile.

Starting things off with a BANG! *sarcasm*

12/19-12/20: Another Christmas, another trip! This time the Graham fam (and Kyle) are spending two weeks in Tuscany in a small town called Civitella. Getting there in one piece, however, proved to be difficult.

For starters, we weren't 100% sure we had a ride to the airport, but that was only through a miscommunication and the Cloughs were more than happy to take the three of us. We met Uncle Alan at the Cloughs for lunch before heading to the airport. Thanks for the Pappas gift card!

Our itinerary was to leave KLM from Houston at 4:30pm and arrive in Amsterdam around 8:30am on KLM, then breeze through the security checkpoints and make our connection to Florence at 10:15am on Merridiana, a regional Italian airline that was partners with KLM, but Mother Nature had other plans. The Houston- Amsterdam leg was almost perfect: we had some slight delays in packing up the bags or something, but we were off before 5. Flying KLM is always great, it's a shame Continental left that alliance so we didn't collect any miles. It was a slightly older plane and only had a few big TVs instead of individual ones in the seats, but I was close enough for it to not matter. We watched The Simpsons, 30 Rock, The Time Travelers Wife, Mr. Bean, and Up. The food served was pretty fancy for an airline. I had some salmon fusion dish that was actually pretty good for dinner. I didn't really care for the breakfast sandwich that came about an hour before we landed, but it was very nice to have the service anyway. We caught a glimpse of things to come as the plane started its decent, only to pull right back up and circle the airport for another 30 min or so. It was snowing in Amsterdam and they weren't quite ready for us to land... but we deboarded about 9am.I also had some light light conversation with a Dutch man heading home and a girl making a connection flight for the holidays. All in all, a good flight. Gregg's flight out of New York got cancelled from the blizzard hitting the whole Northeast...

We weren't so lucky once we made it through security though. The Florence trip had been delayed until 11:40. At 11:20 I checked the posting again and found out it had been pushed back again to 1:45, *sigh*. We milled around the airport and I tried to get some sleep, but that didn't really work out. It had started to snow a pretty decent amount at this point, coming down in bursts. The workers outside had even made a snowman.

Our plane arrived shortly before 2PM. It unloaded quickly and we skipped the board by rows thing and everybody just got on. Then we sat on the tarmac for another 2 hours. Awesome. At least I had some extra leg room courtesy of the exit row. To make matters worse, we had the most obnoxious family on board. 4 boys, ranging in age from 5-9 probably, were constantly running up and down the aisle, screaming hysterically. Not in a scared way, just a really annoying one. Every now and then the mother would faintly shush them, but she also took pictures of them being ridiculously obnoxious. The flight attendant was nowhere to be seen through all of this, naturally. It was a pretty short flight from Amsterdam to Florence, but the extra 2 hours of just sitting there almost put me over the edge.

The plane landed at Florence's surprisingly small, rinky dink airport, at 6:30PM. We deboarded and had to get on a bus to take us to the terminal. I'm not sure if that was because there was too much snow and the plane couldn't get closer to the gate, or if there were no gates at all. It was a really small airport.

Luggage started trickling through after 7, and luckily my bag was the 4th one to come out. Unfortunately, it was the only 1 of our 4 that made the trip. I waited about another 30 minutes for Emily's and Kyle's bags to come before heading through customs, which was literally walking past a man in uniform who didn't check anything, (I guess they don't care since we came from an EU country?) and finding mom and dad waiting for us. They had been there 6 hours since the airport was only updating our departure time from Amsterdam every 30 min!

Long story short, the other bags never came. We ended up filing a claim with an inept lost and found person and finally got out of the airport after 8:30PM. I am disappointed with the whole Italian air service so far, I know the weather played a big part, but there was a distinct lack of efficiency and knowledge of what to do in a situation like this.

Our villa was on top of hill overlooking a village. I bet the view is spectacular during the day, but I wasn't able to see much except the village lights, which was pretty in its own way. Mom said the ride to the airport with the snow everywhere was gorgeous.

The villa is massive, and very oddly designed...there are 5 bedrooms scattered throughout. 3 bathrooms, but only 1 downstairs, 2 dinning rooms liked to each other, complete with dinning room tables and chairs/benches, and 3 living rooms.

For dinner we picked at some AMAZING Italian sausages, cheese, wine, bread, etc...very similar to the smorgasborgs we enjoyed in Copenhagen 3 years ago. I went to bed shortly after eating, probably close to 11:30...but woke up at 5AM, ugh I hope I get this sleep schedule under control quickly.

Gregg flies in at 7PM to Florence *fingers crossed* so I suspect tomorrow will be pretty uneventful from a touring standpoint.

Last Day in Davis

Pretty much took it easy today. We took Lauren home and had brunch with her neighbors. They live in a co-op where 4 houses all share the same yard and garden and stuff, it was interesting. We had a vegan brunch except for eggs, which Lauren brought for Dan and I. Afterwards Dan took me on a quick tour of the campus, including his office, his classes, and the class he TAs. We also went on the arboretum trail around the campus, which was very pleasant and had some redwoods, which were cool to see up close and personal.

That's it from Davis, next trip is Christmas in Italy...

San Francisco!

Today we got up at a reasonable hour and headed out to San Francisco to see the Golden Gate Park, the Fisherman's Wharf and China Town. On the ride up I saw Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge from the Bay Bridge. We actually didn't see much of the park, it was gigantic. We just has a picnic style lunch and played some chess, then headed down to the Wharf. Parking was ridiculous and expensive, so we didn't stay as long as I would have liked at Pier 39, but I could probably have spent all day walking the piers rather than the hour and half we had to get to and around Pier 39. Oh well, it was still fun. I also found a portapotty for the picture collection, but unfortunately we couldn't get a good angle with it to capture anything historic in the background. I was really hoping to get one with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background...

China Town was really cool and was another area where I could have spent all day walking around. I had some BBQ pork noodle soup, which was good, but I've had better food at Houston's China Town. The atmosphere was very different though, with lots of fun little shops and boutiques. We wandered into a teahouse and got a 20 min demonstration and sampling of different teas and their benefits for free. It was really enlightening, fun, and delicious.

We got back to Davis about 8:30 and went out to meet some of Dan's friends at the local noodle place. We came back to the apartment and had a lot to drink before deciding that going to a club after midnight was a good idea. Everyone had a good time. The night ended with us getting kicked out of Taco Bell.

My flight is in the evening out of San Francisco, so I'm not sure what we are planning for the morning/early afternoon. Probably a campus tour of UC Davis

Day 3 Jelly Belly Factory

Today was fun. Dan and I were initially planning an all day trip to San Francisco and China Town, but we spent the morning recovering from the party last night and weren't really active until noonish. We walked into downtown Davis for lunch at Burgers and Brew, where I had a sausage sandwich that was solid. On the way back we stopped at a local TCBY type place.

Since San Fran was out of the question for today, we decided instead to check if the Jelly Belly factory was open the day after Thanksgiving. Tours were running, but the candy making equipment would not be running since the technicians had the day off.

The tour was pretty neat, and fairly interesting. It would have been cool to see the machines in action, but overall it was still worth it. I did learn that root beer and cream soda were 2 of the first 8 Jelly Belly flavors, and that Ronald Reagan was a huge fan of jelly beans, especially Jelly Bean. Smart marketing to play on that, as the whole factory was full of jelly bean portraits of Reagan, and a case of memorabilia. I took quite a few pictures of all the jelly bean art, and I'll post them as soon as I get back to Houston.

There wasn't any advertising history, just how jelly beans were made, so in that respect I preferred the Guiness factory tour, but this was still something fun and I'm glad we made it instead of wasting a day.

For dinner tonight we supported a local pizza place/bakery and ordered a pepperoni/goat cheese pizza which was really tasty.

Day 2 in Davis- Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Update: woke up at 6 because of the time zone change, so just chilled for a bit and watched TV. Around 9 we walked into Davis to get some breakfast, not even thinking that shops might be closed. Luckily we found a crepe place open til 2. Since I had a crepe yesterday for dessert during our Berkeley stop, I decided to get French toast and a hot chocolate. Pretty good, but also pretty standard. We got back to the apartment, turn on the TV, and Green Bay vs Detroit is already 7-7 at the start of the second quarter. Morning football?! Must be nice.

We arrived at Dan's 2nd year friends' house early to cook the turkey there after brining it. I met the host and hostess, and they were really cool and the talk was good. All the people who showed up were really nice and cool, and the food they all brought to the potluck was amazing. Dan's turkey was awesome, the Russian's mashed potatoes were fantastic (go figure), and the host's bread was out of this world. The meal was truly awesome. And the vegan cookies for dessert for really tasty too, something I was skeptical of because they vegan cookies have no butter. Most of us went for a post dinner walk around the neighborhood. Davis is really dark, there doesn't seem to be a lot of street lights and the ones that are here are pretty dim. I also had some brownies, then called it a night after getting pretty trashed throughout the afternoon and evening.

Update to dinner

First dinner in Davis was actually at a Bohemian place, not Bavarian. I had some fantastic Czech wursts- weisswurst, a mixture of pork and veal, and knockwurst, a pork, beef, garlic mix. I washed it all down with an authentic Czech lager, Czechvar.

Side note back on Berkeley. What what I saw, which honestly was not a lot, just several blocks of University Ave, I didn't see the appeal. The scenery was nothing spectacular, it just seemed like a normal college town. The hills do overlook the water though, but all the houses are jammed up next to each other. Dan couldn't figure it out either, and apparently some people commute to Davis from Berkeley. Maybe we didn't get a good representation of the town, and we didn't see the university, but my first impression is unimpressed.

Thanksgiving in California

This year I decided to spend Thanksgiving with my friend Dan at UC Davis, California. The flight into San Francisco was pretty bumpy, but I was able to see a pretty good view of Lake Tahoe from above. The drive to Davis, which should have taken 90 minutes tops, took more like 3 hours with traffic and a lunch stop in Berkeley. We had Indian, partly because it seemed like we drove through Little India, with Indian restaurants on every corner. The lamb curry and naan were quite good though.

On the way from Berkeley to Davis, we passed exits for West Texas Rd., North Texas Rd., and a Texas Road House. I found that stretch of road a bit odd. The hillside was quite beautiful though.

We also past a billboard exclaiming "Time flies when you're having spaghetti" We got a good laugh.

Davis is a nice town so far, and Dan's apartment is within walking distance of downtown. We went to the Co-Op grocery store to pick up a turkey for tomorrow and I noticed a few things. 1) they didn't have any turkey. 2) a found two new rootbeers that hopefully I will remember to remind Dan about to bring home for Christmas, and 3) dairy products are absurdly expensive here...we went to SafeWay to get the turkey and the prices weren't any better there.

Next on tonight's agenda is dinner at a Bavarian restaurant for dinner. I'm pretty excited.

One last thing in Montreal

I forgot to mention one last thing. The entire weekend we were in Montreal there was dandelion fluff constantly blowing in the streets. It was everywhere! I thought that was really strange.

Next updates should come from France hopefully...

Montreal Weekend Wrap Up

There were a few creperies near our hotel, but none of them wear open at 10ish when we set out for breakfast, so we ended up eating at a small cafe just down the street. I had a croissant sandwich, but the croissant was grilled on a panini press, which was different and delicious.

Next, we headed towards Saint Catherine's street, the other major walking street that was recommended by the HP folks in Toronto and Montreal.  There was an underground mall that was recommended to wander around in, but it wasn't all that special.  The area was more touristy and had a McDonald's, Dairy Queen, and other American fast food chains, but we found a nice Mediterranean place and I had a gyro. There was not a lot of things that interested us on Saint Catherine's, but we did pop into the Canadian contemporary art museum. There were 5 or so exhibits, but I only liked Robert Polidori's photographs. The other exhibits were just weird and not what I would consider "art". I guess that's where the contemporary part comes in. 

Afterwards, we had an adventure trying to get to Little Italy, where there was an open air market. We got there eventually after a few wrong turns and not going far enough down streets, and I'm glad we did. The market was cool, kind of similar to the Howth weekend market, but much larger. Dan asked that I make special note that the Lebanese cucumbers were amazing. There were some cool shops surrounding the area, and we popped into a fromagerie just to have a look around after resting our feet and having a drink at a sidewalk cafe. Dan bought some cheese and I spotted 3 new drinks to add to my root beer collection; spruce beer, maple beer, and birch beer. Not exactly root beer, but I figure I'll never see spruce or maple beer again, so I saved a bottle of each.  I tried the maple immediately and it was ok, but I wish I tried the spruce before I got back to Houston. It is far and away the greatest soft drink I have ever tasted, and I really wish I bought more than two bottles.  Dan also picked up a bottle of wine somewhere along the way to go with his cheese.

After awhile, we made our way back to the hotel to regroup and figure out dinner plans. It seems that every weekend in Montreal there is some sort of festival. We were a week too early for jazz fest, but it turned out that we were at the right place at the right time for a science festival, which we had seem some tents set up along the port the day before, and more importantly, lobster festival!

We decided to head to the walking district off Saint Laurent after reading some good reviews that a different Portuguese restaurant, under the same management as the one we had eaten at before. Dan and I each had the lobster dish, which turned out to be two lobster tails, and James went the adventurous route and tried the rabbit.  Everything was really delicious. (see picture above)

After dinner we walked around some more and stopped at a bar. Montreal must be a good place to party, because we saw 4 different bachorette parties roaming the streets. I had some more red beer, it's really grown on me but I had been drinking a local Montreal brew most of the time that I suspect will be difficult to find elsewhere.

It was pretty late at this point and I just wanted to go back to the hotel and take it easy, but James and Dan had other plans and eventually I succumbed to peer pressure and we went back out to try to find some nice bars.

Turns out I had the right idea staying in, all the bars had either ridiculous cover charge or even more ridiculous bottle service, where you can't get in unless you order a $130+ bottle...The one bar we did get into had bottle service, but it turned out to be a pretty antisocial place because of the set up. Groups just stayed at their own table and everyone who was having a good time had come in a group anyway.  We tried the bar scene for 2 hours maybe, but then called it quits.

That was about it for this trip. Sunday I led everybody the wrong direction so instead of getting to a recommended bagel place for breakfast we ate at another small cafe, which was fine with everyone.  We walked to the bus station to get to the airport, but it turned out that a taxi would be cheaper for 3 people. 

At the airport, I noticed both coming into Montreal from Toronto and flying back to Toronto that you don't have to take your shoes off at the security checkpoint, but that you did flying from Toronto back into America.

I bought some French vodka made from distilled grapes at the duty free and some other gifts at the airport, then hopped on the 4 seats per row back to Toronto and 3 seats per row back to Houston.

All in all, it was a good trip, and I really enjoyed the spontaneity of not having a set itinerary. I'm also glad Dan came up and James decided to stay as well.

Montreal Day 3- Downtown Day 1

Today was jammed packed, with tons of walking (comparable to Copenhagen). Dan and I met James in the lobby of our 4 star hotel and started the journey into downtown Montreal to find our 2 star hotel. We took the bus to a subway stop, then road the subway for a bit, got off, and wandered around looking for our hotel. We found it without too much trouble, but had to call the front desk when we were only less than a block away.

Hotel Castel Saint Denis is in an awesome location, and is prety good for a 2 star hotel. The concierge was very helpful and pretty funny, and the rooms are big enough for a short stay. They are similar in size to a dorm room.

After getting settled, we all set out for lunch at a Portuguese restaurant that Dan had stumbled upon the day before while I was working the event. It was a good 20 min or so walk from the hotel, but it ended up being worth it. I had one of the best lunches I've ever had, a Portugeuse sausage sandwich. It was simple and pretty affordable, but really really good. Dan ordered the chef's choice, which was just a load of meat, and James ordered the chicken on Dan's recommendation, since that is what he ordered for lunch the day before.

After lunch we wandered aimlessly around and found Saint Laurent, which a recommended street to walk around on. There was also a pedestrian traffic only section, similar to some streets in Copenhagen. 

At around 2 or 2:30, we decided to take the subway a little out of downtown to see the botanical gardens. We ended up only going to the Biodome for time constraints, which was a huge complex that walked you through 4 different climates and the wildlife that lived in them. It started with rainforest and moved through another forest, a marine environment, and then ended with a penguin exhibit as we reached Antarctica. James got hit my a bird load, which made us all laugh, and there was this cool bird just walking around on the pathway.  I took a load of pictures and a cool video of a bird flying underwater, but the journey didn't take us as long as we thought and we were on our way back to the subway into downtown before 4.

This time, we took the train down to the harbor, and wandered around without a specific plan.We stopped at an outdoor cafe for drinks and did a litle people watching before heading down the harbor. There's some pretty cool architecture downtown, but it was hard to get a good view for the camera.

After the harbor we found the museum district, but by this time things were nearing closing time. We did find a cool church built like Notre Dame in Paris, but they were charging entrance so we passed. Doesn't seem right to have to pay to get into a church. We wandered around some more, and then found China Town!

We went in and out of a few boutiques, then rested our feet at a tapioca tea house for a bit. We stopped at a Vietnamese place for pho, which was excellent, but not quite as good as the pho place in Houston i frequent.  We did some more wandering on the "seedy" side of Saint Laurent and walked past some prostitutes on our way back to the hotel, and stopped at a club that was absolutely dead. We got a free hand stamp to skirt the cover charge and were told to come back in a few hours

Usually, my night would end around here, but we headed to the hotel only to dump off our souvenirs and such before hitting the Montreal night life.

First, we headed to a cafe for some drinks and ended up watching the Penguins beat the Red Wings to win the Stanley Cup. The local red beer here is actually really good, and I don't even like beer. After the game we decided to head back to the club we stopped at earlier.

It was really crowded and loud, which means it's a good place to be I guess. I did dance a little, but for the most part I was a wallflower with James. Dan danced more than I, but we spent more tme not dancing than dancing. It was a fun time, I enjoyed the people watching, but clubs just aren't my scene.

We left the club and got back to the hotel around 1.

It's kind of fun not having a plan or itinerary on vacation, you just walk around the popular pedrestian streets and have a good time.

Montreal Day 2- Event Day

A few other cultural things have caught my eye. There are blinking green lights instead of green arrows, but then they also have blinking green arrows...I haven't seen a solid green arrow yet, and I wonder what the difference between the blinking solid green and the blinking arrow is. Also, Christin ordered an iced coffee in Toronto from Tim Horton's, which is a chain that you see everywhere up here, like Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks. What she got back was basically a coffee flavored smoothie. In Montreal, Dan ordered an iced coffee, and got a regular cup of coffee with 2 or 3 ice cubes in it, not nearly enough to make it iced.  Finally, Dan noticed that the tap water in the hotel has a slight spicy meat aftertaste.  How weird is that!!

The event went well. I facilitated the same session that I did in Toronto, but I think the Toronto portion went a little better.  I managed to research and book a hotel closer to downtown Montreal with the help of Laurie sometime during the event.  The lunch provided at both venues was awful, so I was very excited to learn that Angelo, the manager of the presales force here, was providing us with a cookout for dinner!

I ate way to much, but I couldn't pass up the chicken, pork, and salmon kabobs. I also had a local beer brewed in Montreal that was pretty good, and I don't even like beer all that much.  

Desert rolled around and we were introduced to a new type of cheese, Types de Moins, I think is what it was called. It was really interesting to prepare because he had a special cutting machine just for this type of cheese. A scraper went around the surface of the circle of cheese and made a sort of funnel or cone shaped slice of cheese, then Angelo dumped some mint jelly into the center of the cheese  cone. It was quite excellent.  After that, the canolis were brought out, which were also delicious. The night was topped off with some port. It was a very French like atmosphere with tons of chatting and a lot of wait time for the food. James, an engineer also staying the weekend in Montreal, Dan, and I were also able to get a few pointers on some streets to wander and where to go that wasn't too touristy in Montreal.  I can say for certain now that my French is just about gone, I could not understand anything the Montreal team was saying, but Dan dived right in and was able to hold his own in a conversation. It made me a little sad to realize that my French is not only really bad now, but practically nonexistant. My accent is still very good though...

Work's over, now it's time to have some fun!

Montreal Day 1

Today I woke up in a startled and slightly paranoid state of mind. It was 7:45 and we were meeting at 8 to leave to the airport! I had left my phone on vibrate and slept right through the alarm, but in the end I was able to dash to lobby. I was still the driver, so I was in good shape.

The flight to Montreal was a quick 52 minutes, but the plane was enormous. It was 6 seats-per-row as opposed to the 3 per row that we flew into Toronto from Houston on. It was Air Canada instead of Continental, and they had an entertainment system built into the seat. Unfortunately, the Games function was unavailable, so I just spent most of the flight drifting in and out of a nap. One really interesting thing that I remember was my ginger ale. I ordered a giner ale and the flight attendant emptied a can into a cup, then added two small ice cubes. I preferred it this way, but thought it was strange since everywhere in the states they load you up on ice first then fill up the cup.

After checking into the hotel we headed out to Scores for lunch before set up. I think it is a chain restaurant in Canada and reminded me a lot of a Chiles type restaurant. They appeared to be known for their chicken and ribs, so I could not pass up an opportunity to partake in some baby backs. They tasted alright, and if you ignore the fact that they were ribs they were pretty good, but they just didn't taste like ribs. The sauce was very good though, it was sort of a tangy sweet bbq. The ribs came with fries and half of a toasted hamburger bun, which I thought was a little odd.  The lunch special was topped off with some ridiculously rich chocolate cake.

Set up in Montreal had a few a few hitches, but for the most part everything went smoothly. Once again, our van got there way before the other van because it took a wrong turn. I seem to have been blessed by being put into a group with good directionally minded people (and a GPS).

After fixing up all the rooms for tomorrow's event, we headed back to the hotel, met up with Daniel and the rest of the engineers who did not have anything to set up, and headed out to downtownish Montreal for a later than usual dinner. We chose Moe's Bar and Grill, one of the restaurants suggested by Norm in Toronto, and I had the the smoked meat sandwich, just like he suggested. Calling it a sandwich is pretty generous, in reality it was more like a pile of meat with two pieces of bread thrown in as a joke. I was not disappointed. I also tried snails for the first time and stole one of Dan's ribs, which were much better than the ribs I tried at lunch. Dan and I also split La Dulce Vita choclate cake, which was practically fudge instead of cake. Very delicious and heavy meal.

2009 Canada Trip- Toronto wrap up

Blogging a little behind on my schedule, I had hoped to wrap up blogging about the first two Toronto days last night after dinner, but I experienced some internet problems in the hotel and eventually just crashed. 

I find myself back in Canada this week working the same event I worked last year for HP, a two city, two day event. Just like last year, it's Toronto and Montreal again.

The flight from Houston to Toronto wasn't that bad, but it was on a tiny 3 seat-per-row express jet. One member of the team got bumped from the flight, so another took the $500 travel voucher and gave his seat up too. This would come back to haunt them, however, as the luggage made the trip on our Continental flight while they waited for Air Canada hours later. Needless to say the baggage got lost in the airport when we landed Monday afternoon, and wasn't brought to the hotel until Tuesday, after the Toronto portion of the event. We had a clothes collection for Miles and James as a joke.

Back to Monday: I was one of the lucky ones picked to be a driver, and overcame a slight fear/discomfort of mine of having to drive in a foreign city. I escaped the ordeal with only 1 slightly illegal right turn coming out of the airport, and 1 u-turn, which really should be blamed on Christin, as I was following her to the office to set up and started to turn down the correct street only to see her speed through it in front of me.

Set up Monday went more of less smoothly, and we had pizza delivered to the Toronto campus, which is absolutely stunning btw. Lots of windows, very open, and a good size. It is one of the few campuses that HP owns outright and is not paying anything on it.  We were spoiled in Toronto; Montreal's office is much much smaller.

Tuesday I worked the event. I had the same session throughout the whole day, and ended up driving the slides,which is something I hadn't done in past events. The slide deck was a mess and I had to keep switching between 4 separate presentations, but as the day went on I got pretty good at it. From my standpoint, the event went very well.

After the event we had did a team dinner with some of the Toronto folks at Milestones, the same restaurant that we wrapped up last year's Toronto event with.  I had the salmon last year and it was delicious, but i decided to branch out and try their Italian black pepper steak and shrimp meal. It also came with garlic mashed potatos and asparagus. Very delcious. The night was topped off with pleasant conversation with Norm from the Toronto office, and he gave me some restaurant suggestions and a few things to experience while in Montreal. The Montreal event wraps up Thursday, but I am staying until Sunday to experience the city. Dan is also flying in today (Wed), so the weekend should be a blast!

Montreal side of things to come next post.

Consolidating blogs

I've recently put up my Christmas 2006 and 2007 blog posts from another blog that I now no longer use. If you are curious about Copenhagen or Ireland sightseeing commentary, give it a read.

End of Ireland Trip

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Didn't do anything after New Years until this weekend when we went to Cork in southern Ireland to see their famous butter museum (no joke) and Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone. Friday our trip departed as most do with a quick Dart ride into Dublin. From there we got on our first class 3 hour train ride to Cork. The problem with most of our long train rides this trip has been that we haven't seen how scenic Ireland is due to the early sunset and our late departure times. Oh well. We got to Cork fairly late and just holed up in our hotel for the night. Saturday we meandered around Cork following a pseudo guided walking tour. Mom dragged us to a lot of churches, but most of them were pretty spectacular and worth a walk around. We also went to the jail they have in Cork. It was very similar to the Dublin one, but a little less impressive in my mind. Unfortunately for us (or maybe fortunately), the famous butter museum was closed, however, we did see the stupidest thing imaginable...in Cork there is a clock called the 4 faced liar. Aptly named for there is a clock face on each side of the tower...and each one says a different time. WTF!!! So Saturday was spent meandering around Cork popping into churches and being completely baffled by this stupid clock. Sunday we took a bus to Blarney Castle to kiss the famous stone. It grants the kisser the gift of gab, the power to bullshit. I was hung upside down and lowered from the top of the castle just to kiss it! The castle itself was pretty magnificent and relatively well intact for a Middle Ages Era castle. On the castle grounds there are a group of caves and fairy dwellings and druid stones. So that was pretty awesome and well worth the perusal. Blarney is tied with the Ghost Tour for coolest thing I did in Ireland. I leave in a few days and don't really anticipate doing anymore heavy duty sightseeing, so this should wrap up my holiday blogging. See everybody next Christmas, who knows where I'll be next!!

Ireland Some More

Monday, December 31, 2007

Happy 2008 everybody! Tonight the family sans Gregg went to a pub and then a hotel bar until the bells at Christ Church Cathedral started to ring. Nothing special, just a nice family evening. Much safer than the bombardment we sustained in Copenhagen (we suspect the Swedes were behind it). Very few fireworks, something I'm not used to...( I seem to have been hit by a firework on New Year's Eve 4 times out of the last 5 years or so). We took video of the ringing of the bells, complete with Graham family antics, so I'll try to get that posted sometime soon. I've decided to take a few more risks, be a little more confident, and have a more optimistic view of the world.

More Ireland

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Tonight we went on "the world's only ghostbus tour". It was pretty spectacular and probably my favorite thing we've done in Ireland so far. We had a very good guide who was oddly hilarious for such a somber topic. The tour started out with a ghost story involving the very bus we we're riding in, which is how it came to be the ghostbus tour. It was one of the few ghost stories in which a ghost came from the future rather than the past, so that was fascinating. Next, we learned about Abraham "Bram" Stoker's twisted mother, who was terrorized by cholera victims while growing up and who tormented her son with horrific bed time stories involving the walking dead as they were called. So that's where he got a lot of the details and ideas for his Dracula tale. Our next stop involved us getting out of the bus and touring a graveyard. It is where a Blessed (not quite Saint) Archbishop from the 1500s is buried, and also where the Irish version of the Inquisition took place. There is quite an evil history of that place, Satanic rituals and bizarre happenings have been happening at least once every century since the 1500s, the last being in 1957. We also learned how body snatchers operated during the early 1800s when bodies were high in demand (for anatomy studies). Really fascinating part of the tour. Our 4th stop was the Haunted Steps leading to the Gate to Hell (no joke). There was an underground society named Hell and the gate we walked through was the only entrance into it. The site is also famous for a character named the Sandyman, who is the Irish boogey man. There was a fascinating ghost story involving this character and two nuns. One of the nuns tripped on the steps in 1955 and fell into a pool of blood. She found a disembodied thumb and wrapped it in her white hankerchief. Then the nuns saw the Sandyman and ran to the police. When the police investigated, they discovered that the hankerchief was no longer bloodstained and the thumb had mysteriously vanished. The nuns took that as a sign of intervention. Pretty creepy stuff. The final stop on the tour was the graveyard at Saint Patrick's Cathedral, where we heard the ghost tale of the Lady in White, Ireland's most famous ghost story. According to the tour guide, the terms 'saved by the bell' and 'dead ringers' both originated in Ireland. Many bodies were accidentally buried alive, so many bodies buried were attached to bells above ground. If the body woke up, the bell would ring and the graveyard caretaker would dig up the grave to save whoever was down there. (saved by the bell). Dead ringers means someone who looks strikingly similar to someone else. This term came around because once the bodies were brought back, people who thought they were dead would see them walking around on the streets. That must have been terrifying. The tour was a tad expensive at 25 euro, but I strongly recommend it.

Ireland

Friday, December 28, 2007

I've been feeling rather under the weather for the past two days, so really haven't done much. Today we went to the Irish Writers Museum. It's worth a look if you find yourself in Dublin. After that we walked the shopping district looking for hiking boots for Mom, then we went to a cafe. Mom and Em wanted to continue exploring town, so I took navigated myself back to the DART station and went back home. Tomorrow night we have a Ghost bus tour scheduled, so that should be a blast.

Ireland Week Recap

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Internet has been down for a week, so this is going to be a rather lengthy post. Thursday- This was a relax and take it easy day. Emily went into work with Dad to see geophysicists in action. The rest of us lazily watched TV. Mom and I took a brief walk on the beach to see the lead singer of the Cranberries house, who lives down the road. Really not much else happened. Friday- Another fairly lazy day, but due to Mom’s incessant nagging we accompanied her into the center of Howth for a mini tour. There was an abbey and some bars. The abbey is one of the few churches of its time to have a triple bell tower, but other than that it wasn’t all that spectacular. Saturday was a long but awesome day. We woke up at 6 to catch the DART into Dublin so we could take the Enterprise train into Belfast, Northern Ireland. That train ride was about 2 hours, but Em and I passed the time by teaching Mom how to play Egyptian Rat Screw. We played 5 games, on the way up, naturally I won all 5. For some strange reason I’m bizarrely good at that game. We run into momentary trouble when we arrived in Belfast because we didn’t put the connection that since Northern Ireland is a different country and part of Great Britain, we would need pounds instead of Euros! Luckily, Dad found an ATM and we were back in business. We wandered Belfast for a little bit, its claim to fame is that the Titanic was built in the shipyards. They say the only reason it sank was because it had an English captain and a Scottish navigator instead of Irish ones! There’s also a monument to the Titanic, but in 1997 the city erected a large ferris wheel about 5 feet behind it, so it looks hilariously out of place. After a brief walk around Belfast we arrived at our tour bus that would take us 2 hours even further north to Giant’s Causway off the coast across from Scotland. The further north we drove, the colder it got (naturally). It even reached 1 degree Celsius, talk about cold! Nevertheless we braved the elements and arrived at Giant’s Causeway. The Causeway is a fascinating geological foundation. A contained pool of magma cooled slower than magma usually does, creating massive basalt pillars that almost look like manmade stepping stones. The also appear on the Scottish coast. Emily and Dad really enjoyed it, but it was fun for the whole family. The myth behind the creation is pretty funny. Once upon a time there was an Irish giant and a Scottish giant. The Irish one decided to battle the Scottish one, so he built a path to cross the sea to Scotland (it’s very close, you could see the Scottish coast). However, when he crossed into Scotland, he noticed the Scottish giant was much larger than he was, so he fled back to his house in Ireland and had his mother dress him as a baby. When the Scottish giant arrived and saw how large the “baby” was, he fled in terror because the dad must have been enormous. He destroyed most of the causeway as he fled. We returned to Belfast later in the evening and wandered the streets some more, mainly looking at fascinating architecture. We stopped for drinks at a famous Victorian era bar complete with snugs. A snug is a basically a very fancy and ornately decorated enclosed booth. Very cozy. We finished our drinks, meandered around some shops, then head back to catch our train back. All in all, a long but spectacular and fun filled day. Sunday was a day spent in recovery from our Belfast excursion. Mom, Dad, and I did go into Howth Harbor to visit the open air Sunday market, but that was about the only thing we did. Monday- Happy Christmas Eve! (as the locals say). Today was another fairly lazy day spent watching TV. They are really big into texting and celebrity perfumes over here, every other commercial is about texting or David Beckham’s, Hillary Swank’s, Sarah Jessica Parker’s, etc. new perfume. For Christmas Eve dinner we went to Dad’s favorite restaurant, the Oar House. Good seafood but nowhere near as extravagant as last year’s dinner. It will be a long time before we dine like that again, hehe. After dinner we walked back home and opened one present. It’s a little family tradition. Emily got me the American Office Season 1, so I’m pretty pleased. Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas tomorrow! Tuesday- MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!! Highlight of today include the presents (Irish Monopoly, some cash, a Dublin Hard Rock Café TV, and a stein for my collection that is currently in VA because it didn’t arrive in time for Gregg to bring it.), Gregg crushing us all in Monopoly after no one landed on more Boardwalk/Parkplace with 4 houses for 3 turns, bad luck. A nasty uphill walk to Howth Hill, but a really pleasant and pretty walk down the Cliffside to get back home, and Doctor Who Christmas special!!! No spoilers here though. After that the family watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3 because Mom and I hadn’t seen it. It was pretty good but I still think 1st one is the best. Hope all enjoyed a fun-filled day. Merry Christmas!

Ireland Day 7

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Final day of our Day 3 city bus tour started with Emily deciding to take a break. Mom, Gregg, and I hit up Kilmainham Gaol (the main jail of Dublin from 1796-1924), but had a brief set back when Mom led us onto the wrong bus. We quickly remedied the error and got to walk through a nice park to get to the Hop on/Hop off bus stop. Lots of leaders from the failed rebellion attempts of the 1800s and the 1916 Easter Rising were executed at the jail. Lot of history in that place, it was pretty cool. We hopped back on the bus to take us to Jameson. The route took us through Phoenix Park, the 2nd largest park in Europe according to the driver. There is a monument to Lord Wellington, defeater of Napoleon at Waterloo, and the U.S. Ambassador's residence. Dublin Zoo is also located in Phoenix Park. Mom called it a day and went home to get ready for the Christmas party with Dad's work, so Gregg and I decided to tour The Old Jameson's Distillery. Jameson is no longer distilled in Dublin, but the tour was awesome nonetheless. It was guided, unlike the Guinness tour, and went into great detail about how whiskey is made. Jameson is distilled 3 times, most Scottish whiskey is distilled 2 times, and American brandy is distilled 1 time. Apparently that is very important and a matter of pride to the Irish. The tour guide was awesome, which is important in a guided tour, really added a lot to it. I know a lot more about whiskey than I did yesterday at the whiskey shop, haha. The tour ended much like the Guinness tour did with a free drink. I went with gingerale and Jameson, and it was pretty good. Gregg volunteered to be a whiskey taster. He got to sample 3 different Irish Whiskeys, including Jameson, a Scottish one (Johnny Walker Red) and an American one (Jack Daniels). He, like the other volunteer whiskey tasters, thought that Jameson was the best of the bunch (except one girl who liked the Scottish, the tour guide gave her hell but it was in jest) After the tour Gregg and I caught the correct bus and made our way to the DART station. Once back in Howth we picked up some fish n chips for ourselves and Emily for dinner, since Mom and Dad would be at the Christmas party. As usual, ending the day with TV, this time Simpsons!

Ireland Day 6

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Day 2 of our bus tour was slightly disappointing. We planned to see Dublin Castle, Saint Patrick's Cathedral, a famous Irish jail, and the Jameson distillery. I also wanted to see the Irish Writer's Museum, but we decided that could wait for another day. Unfortunately, we only managed to see Dublin Castle and Saint Pat's Cathedral because Gregg and Emily were lazy late starters. Dublin Castle was really cool. It was a combination of the medieval castle built by the Vikings centuries ago and the Georgian restoration during the 1700s. It was interesting to see the vastly different styles. First the heavily fortified castle from the medieval era, then the larger courtyards and rooms for the English monarchs to rule Ireland over and keep them in line. Ireland gained its independence from the Crown in 1922. The inside was not quite as breathtaking as Versailles, but what can be? We took some good pictures of the ornate ceilings and chandeliers. Lots of neck craning. After a lunch stop in a pub we headed to Saint Patrick's Cathedral. It was really cool, very nice stainglass windows and architecture like most Gothic cathedrals have. We got a few good pictures of that aswell. Jonathon Swift was a big part of the Cathedral and he is buried there. There was a neat side exhibit detailing his life. We also went for a stroll in the garden/park outside the Cathedral, where they have a bunch of plaques honoring Irish's rich history of poets and writers. We hopped back on the bus and took a small detour in our plans and headed back to the Guiness factory to pick up some souvenirs. We were rushed last night and I had a change of heart and decided to buy some things to remind me of the cool advertising campaigns. 4 pint classes, a nice mug to go with my collection, and a pack of playing cards with the advertising designs on them. We were unable to see the jail or the distillery due to bad time management, so we decided to meet Dad for dinner earlier than planned. On the way we stopped at a Celtic Whiskey Shop, were I popped in to buy some gifts. I don't have a clue when it comes to whiskey, but I think I found something suitable. Dinner was a nice leg of lamb, then we headed back to the DART station to catch the train back to Howth. I took a brief nap on the way and am now closing out the day as I have since we got here...watching old reruns of British Who Wants to be a Millionaire episodes! Day 3 should see highlights from the jail and the distillery, so stay tuned!

Ireland Day 5

Monday, December 17, 2007

Today we DARTed into Dublin to start our 3 day hop on/hop off city bus tour, where, as you might expect, we have 3 days to tour the city and get off at various spots to further investigate and then hop back on a later tour bus to the next destination. Our first stop was Trinity College: Dublin. The library has a large and fantastic collection of old and rare manuscripts, the most famous being the Book of Kells, an 800 A.D. illuminated manuscript of the 4 gospels. After wandering the college grounds, we ate lunch at a Bewley's, a pub that James Joyce had written about in his book The Dubliners. We also passed some statues of Oscar Wilde and James Joyce on the bus tour, but decided not to get out and have a closer look. Stop two was Christ Church, which was pretty typical of the cathedrals I've seen in France and Denmark. Pointed archways, stain-glass windows, ornate carvings into architecture, fancy designs carved into the tile floors, and a crypt holding the treasures of the era. Stop three connected was a medieval and viking's history of Ireland museum connected to Christ Church. The vikings were actually the first group of people to establish a permanent settlement in present day Dublin. The museum was a little hokey but fun at the same time. They had an exhibit that made a huge deal about how the average viking helmet did not actually have horns on it, then sold plastic viking helmets with horns in the giftshop! I got a chuckle out of that. Stop four was the one I was most looking forward to for today, the Guinness storehouse! I've never really liked Guinness, but I thought it would be cool to see how it was made. Well that train of thought turned out to be slightly disappointing since they only had video demonstrations and panels explaining the process rather than a live demonstration, which is what I was looking forward to. Still, the complex was 7 stories high, so there were plenty of things to do. One floor had a section devoted entirely to the history of Guinness's advertising, which I was naturally drawn to. I spent most of my time perusing that section, until I later discovered that they had an entire floor devoted to the actual artist (John Gildory) who made the famous zoo animals and zoo keeper advertisements. I watched about a dozen TV advertisements depicting these characters and was impressed by how simple yet effective they must have been. I don't think they could be shown nowadays though, as cartoon characters seeing adult products are generally frowned upon. The history of the different slogans they've had throughout the year were also fascinating. Doctor's used to perscribe Guinness to patients because the mere sight of it made them happy and seemed to help cure whatever was ailing them. This led to "Guinness, it's good for you" which was repeated over and over again in the adverts. I can't imagine a doctor prescribing beer to cure depression in this day and age! Also saw the creation of the popular "My Goodness, My Guinness" ads. Still, seeing this history of advertising made the tour worth it in my opinion. The trip ended in a bar where you get a free Guinness, but I was satisfied with the smaller free sample earlier in the tour, reaffirming my dislike for the beverage. That concluded day 1 of 3. We set out to find a pub and get some dinner. We arrived at O'Neill's, one of the best pubs in the city according to the guidebooks. Mom embarrassed us all by talking to some Germans in her "British" accent, which she has a nasty habit of whenever she talks to foreign people. It really isn't a British accent at all, it's a hodgepodge of her British attempt and whatever country's language. It's very embarrassing and she does it wherever we go: Ireland, France, Denmark, and I'm sure others. Can't take her anywhere! But we sure do love her, she makes life interesting!! Speaking of parents, Dad claims all the birds in Ireland must be Polish...the ravens perch and nibble on the electric train cables and the seagulls try to crack clams and shells in the sand rather than on sharp rocks! That's it for today, details of day 2's city tour tour tomorrow.

Ireland Day 4

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Update from yesterday, I was tired and forgot some details. We also went to Temple Bar, which is a district in Dublin similar to Bourbon Street in New Orleans. I suspect Gregg, Em, and I will go back another time sans parental supervision. I was also accosted by the cleanest and most well dressed homeless man I had ever met. Today we took a taxi to the DART (train station) to meet out bus tour on time. The bus tour was long but interesting and entertaining thanks to the stops and the funny little man driving the bus. Our first stop was Powerscourt House and Gardens, one of Ireland's treasurers, in the Wicklow Mountains. There was a Japanese style garden complete with wooden gazebo and bridges over a babbling brook and the typical Italian style found in most European castles. I picked up a few gifts in the gift shop for people stateside and then it was back onto the bus for stop two. Next, we arrived at the monastic settlement of Saint Kevin. Legend has it he lived to be 120 with his hermetic lifestyle and devotion. It's one of the best preserved monastic settlements in all of Ireland, situated serenely in a valley between two lakes. Very picturesque. It almost rekindled my interest in archaelogy, haha. We ate lunch at a nearby hotel where they made a great lamb and potato stew. Our third and final stop was a peat bog. Pretty quick walk across the peat and back into the bog because it was really cold and winding high up in the mountains. The summary makes the trip sound pretty short, but the destinations were pretty far from each other. At the train station coming home I was ambushed by another extremely well groomed and well dressed homeless man. They really catch you off guard with their appearance and politeness, not at all like in America, haha. Another thing I've noticed about the Irish is that the letter H is in every Gaelic word, but they don't pronounce it. This language quirk translates to English words as well. Thirty thousand becomes tirty tousand. Dad has a field day with that because the letter H is very pronounced (think h as in ha), but they never pronounce the letter in words. Dad walks around saying "there's no H-ech in Howth (our town name)" No doubt where I get my sense of humor from...

Ireland Day 3

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Today was much more eventful than the past two. Gregg flew in around 9, family talked mostly about sports for a bit, then Mom, Em, and I took the train into Dublin around 11. I enjoy a good train ride and really wish that America had a system like Europe's. It won't happen for various reasons, but it sure would be nice. We must've walked for 4 hours, but we did see a good deal. First, we went to a riverside market/mini carnival with small boutiques and a carousel ride, with a hilarious sign that will be on facebook. After that, we gazed upon a group of statues depicting the potato famine...also a hilarious pic that will be on facebook. Next we hit the main shopping district, which was very similar to Copenhagen's. Street vendors, department stores, small stores, and street performers. I did manage to pick up my remaining gifts for Gregg and Emily. We also saw random monuments dedicated to various figures of the Irish Rebellion and several old buildings with neat architecture. Tomorrow I think we are going on some official tours rather than just walking around Dublin.

Ireland Day 2

Friday, December 14, 2007

Not too much to blog about today. Still battling with jetlag, went to bed at 1 and woke up at 6 (weird). Mom and Emily went hill climbing about 8, but I wasn't up for it, so I continued to watch cricket. Addicted and clueless. 10a.m. rolled around and I took another long nap, waking up at 4:30 to watch more tv. NHL is really big over here for some reason. We watched Are You Smarter than a 10 Year Old rather than Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader because the school system is different over here. Little differences like that tickle my fancy for some reason, maybe I should have gone into sociology, haha! They have a channel devoted to people playing games, not like G4 where they review games, but actually watching people play games. Mario Strikers was the game today, complete with real time commentary...I guess there really is a market for anything! The advertisements in Ireland are pretty risque, most of which wouldn't be seen in the states. Also, a bunch of them break the mold and don't seem to have much to do with whatever product they are selling. Case in point, this Cadbury ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnzFRV1LwIo How does that sell chocolate? I don't even know but that is why marketing is so fascinating. This ad apparently boosted Cadbury sales by 6%. Incredible. Tomorrow Gregg flies in for two weeks. We'll have the whole family for Christmas again! That hasn't happened in a few years due to Gregg being in the Navy. If he handles jetlag better than I do we will probably go into town, so that will be fun. If not we'll have another quiet day in the apartment, but Sunday we have big tour plans. Plenty to talk about then!

Ireland Day 1

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Another Christmas abroad, another reason to update Xanga! I'll be using it as a travel diary again as I did last year in Copenhagen. Em and I just arrived in Howth, a "suburb" of Dublin where Mom and Dad live in a nice cozy apartment overlooking the sea and two islands. Beach front property, you can actually hear the waves crashing. I suspect jetlag will soon catch up with me, we left Atlanta around 9:30p.m. flew for about 7 hours, and thanks to the magic of timezones, landed at about 9:30a.m. Ireland is 5 hours off the eastern coast. The actual flight was pretty smooth, no real troubles except for my inability to sleep on airplanes. The inflight movies were Stardust, which was awesome, and Mr. Bean's Holiday, which I tried to sleep through. I love Rowan Atkinson, but a full length Mr. Bean feature is just too much. The lighting in the apartment is super screwy. There are "zones" and every switch is located in the hallway. IF you are in the kitchen and it's dark, you have to go to the hallway, push the knob for kitchen, then flip the switch. Goofy. The shower has a temperature gauge though, that's pretty neat. That's it for now, more updates if the family does something today. I should probably nap... Update! I took a nice 4 hour nap around noon and was ready to walk around the harbor with Mom and Em. It is a pretty quaint town, their claim to fame is fish. Fish N Chips shops, fish mongers, fish markets, fish processing plants, fish whatever, they have it. At the end of one of the stone piers, and I got a huge kick out of this, were two footprints chiseled into the stone. Apparently it is King George the 4th's foot prints, but you would never know. No plaque, no ropes, no nuthin. Just random chiseled feet. (Mine are bigger!) After getting some awesome fish n chips we head back to the apartment and started watching TV. We found a program that showed the video of the best song of the Christmas season from 1977-2007...we couldn't get through all of it, just too terrible so we started watching Challenge, the game show network here. British Who Wants to be a Millionaire was hilarious, the host was much funnier than Regis or the girl and the contestants don't put up with the suspense crap. Since I'm on the subject of TV, I made an attempt to watch a Cricket match earlier in the day, and while intrigued, I had no idea what was going on. Crazy game. That just about sums up the first day in Ireland, who knows what tomorrow will bring, but I suspect a ton of walking, just like in Copenhagen.

End of Denmark Trip

Monday, January 01, 2007

Too furious/tired for a real update. How does an airline lose 20 bags?!?!?! and of course, our 4 were part of those 20. rabble rabble rabble!

Denmark Day 12

Sunday, December 31, 2006

Day 12: Happy New Year everybody! Man what an amazing experience here in Copenhagen. It will be hard to put into words but I'll give it a go. We didn't do much during the day, but it sun set around 4. 5:30ish we start hearing fireworks go off, it sounds like the city is at war! Huge explosion sounds, but no dazzle in the sky, which was kinda odd. We wandered around for 30 minutes and decided to come back inside since we couldn't see anything. About 15 min til 9 the sound really picks up. I mean it is just astounding, I've never heard anything like it, so we decide to go out on another adventure. This time we decided to make the 30 min trek to the major square in town to celebrate. On our way we did see a couple fireworks go off in the air. When we got to the square, we saw probably the most retarded people I've ever seen. The were firing fireworks off at the ground, which just screaming until they hit people in the feet or they jumped out of the way. The amazing thing was nobody cared and just kept walking! It was absolutely incredible. There would have been at least 10 law suits in the States. The same group, who looked Middle Eastern (they like blowing stuff up right?) also fired mortar type fireworks at the ground that were making the ridiculously loud noises with little razzle dazzle. There were also fireworks that detonated no more than 5 feet off the ground. Pretty intense! We watched them til around 10, then went into a hotel bar for New Year's drinks cuz it was soo cold outside. We sought refuge in the bar til 11:30 ish when we noticed the square which was relatively empty when we got there almost filled to the brink. There must have been well over 3,000 people there. We got in a group of about 300 on the side of the street and just started watching an awesome display. Trouble is, there is no official display by official or anything, it is just a bunch of maniacs with thousands of dollars of fireworks having a good time. Probably drunk too. One firework exploded right in front of Emily's face and singed probably 20 people. Another two fireworks went off within 2 feet of where we were standing. Incredible experience. On a side note, this marks the 3rd time in 5 years I've been hit with a firework on New Year's Eve. So I know that didn't do the atmosphere any justice, but it was simply too incredible to capture with words. This has been the best New Year's Eve I've ever experienced, and it will be hard to top it. It was just amazing. Simply amazing. Today was also the last day of the trip, we fly out early tomorrow morning. I'm thinking about doing a summary entry of my entire experience tomorrow when I get home, but that would probably be the last entry for awhile as nothing else I do is really interesting enough to write down. hehe. I appreciate anyone who read these.

Denmark Day 11

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Day 11 A few tidbits I want to talk about before delving into my day: 1. Every day we walk by a bookstore that has 3 window displays devoted to L. Ron Hubbard...I sure hope scientology is not big over here. And 2, they give out free samples of alcohol in the supermarket. Mom had some red vine, but no one else tried the rum and coke or gin that was also available. Pretty odd. Anyway, on to Helsingor! Today we took the train to Helsingor. The train took us up the coast, so we had a view of the coastline, woods, small towns, and sprawling estates. Man the weather was bleak and rainy, which was worse since we were right on the shoreline. Helsingor is not the name of the castle, it is the name of the town. I didn't know that. The actual castle is called Kronborg Slot, and is the setting for Shakespeare's Hamlet as well as being 3 separate museums. First, we saw the Royal Chambers. It was pretty grand and neat and all, but slightly disappointing because it had been redone after a fire in the 1600 or 1700s. Instead of ornate marble floors and fancy ceilings, we had plain wood floors and a still impressive ceiling with paintings, although they were stucco. The best part was that most of the exhibits were only half there, with signs stating 5 out of the 16 tapestries are in the Swedish museum taken as spoils of one of the countless wars between the two countries. You could even see Sweden from the shore, the distance between the two is miniscule. The second museum was the maritime museum. I wasn't too interested in the history of Danish ships, but it was still a neat place. We saw some bits on the company my dad is working for, so that was pretty cool. Finally, and my favorite part, was the dungeon! You had to buy a flashlight because it was too dark to see! We also found a statue erected in honor of Holger Danske, who is the big mythological protector of Denmark. I got a good picture of the awesome shrine and also a small statue as a keepsake. But yeah, the dungeon was pretty spectacular. After finishing up at the castle, we grabbed some lunch at a chinese place and then decided to check out the rest of Helsingor. Unfortunately, we learned that most of the shops closed at 2pm on Saturday (really bizare) and we got out of the castle around 2:30. Most unfortunate, so we just got back on the train and traveled the 40 minutes back to Copenhagen. All in all, a great day, even if the weather was lousy. It certainly was a good day for ducks.

Denmark Day 10

Friday, December 29, 2006

Day 10: We scratched Helsignor for today, postponed til tomorrow because it is only open until 3:30 during the winter and we had a late start. Instead, we took the subway, which was very very clean, to a neighboring city and toured the zoo. It was a good zoo, odd, but good. The animals all posed for pictures, which was neat, but a little odd... but the weirdest part about the whole zoo were the recipes next to the pens. For real, there was a picture and directions for how to make a reindeer pie pinned to the reindeer fence. Zoo sponsored and everything, we saw about 5 or 6 of these recipes to various animals. Llamas is the only other one I can remember off the top of my head. Another odd part of the zoo was the children's petting zoo. Apart from Emily and I getting attacked by an Icelandic Pony, we saw a box with pictures of animals. When you lifted up a part of the animal, it had what you could make out of them! Lift up the head of a duck and there was a pillow. There was a roast duck picture underneath the body of the duck, a steak under the cow, and so on...Truly a bizare zoo. Weirdest one I've ever been in. On the way home we stopped at a mall. I only mention this because it added to the oddness of the outing. The escalators were not stairs, just a moving slope downwards or upwards. Very odd. Tomorrow we are finally going to Helsignor

Denmark Day 9

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Day 9: More shopping! Pretty sure I am completely done shopping for everybody now, and even bought myself a nice stein for hot chocolate. The only other thing we did today was eat at a pretty nice streak house. I think we've pretty much done almost everything you can do in Copenhagen, so tomorrow we are taking the train north to see Helsignor. Should be a fun day filled with history and Shakespeare, courtesy of mom the tour guide. More details tomorrow!

Denmark Day 8

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Day 8: I forgot to mention this yesterday, but all the Christmas decorations on the streets and lamp posts are gone. Christmas is over in Denmark, unlike in America where it keeps going until late January. hehe Today we walked to Rosenslot, the castle where they keep the Danish treasury and the crown jewels. We only got to see 3 rooms of the main castle, even though the guidebook said all 24 rooms on 3 floors should be open to the public. Must be closed for the winter or something. There were paintings on the walls, not hung on the walls, but actually painted onto the wood walls and ceilings. Lots of looking up, but nowhere near as impressive as Versailles. The treasury room was neat, lots of swords and necklaces and stuff like that. The crown jewels were almost as exquisites as England's, but the security was much less rigid. You can actually go up right next to the case and look down at the crown, in England you can't get that close. The castle is billed as a "fairy tale castle" with a moat and huge courtyard/garden. After Rosenslot Dad, Em, and Mom decided to go see the Danish Geology museum. I wasn't in the mood to look at rocks and was a little under the weather, so I walked home early all by myself and didn't get lost! For those of you unaware, my sense of direction is awful and I have gotten lost on circular walkways before. I was impressed I made it back in one piece. Currently watching a bootlegged copy of The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. We couldn't turn the subtitles off, so we put them in English...wow they are so awful. Definately a pirated film, but it should make it even more awesome. "That my house how does" and "I look a lot of coming over" are just some examples of the awful subtitles. I'm in stitches..

Denmark Day 7

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Day 7 How are the Europeans so fit?? They eat a ton! Today we met with some of Dad's work associates who own a house a few towns over from Copenhagen. We got to ride the train!... I like trains. The view wasn't much, just a bleak country side with small towns dotted here and there, but I guess that is better than always seeing concrete. Weather plays a factor too, would be beautiful in the spring. We did have a bit of a scare at the train station however. We were supposed to meet up with an Argentine couple and go together to the house as guests...but we had no idea what the couple looked like! We ended up calling them on cellphones when they were like 10 feet away. Pretty funny. They were looking for an American couple with small children. So with that sorted out we were able to get on the correct train without a problem. We also met a small old man on the train who tried to teach mom the Danish pronounciations of the towns we were passing through. That was pretty funny. The language here has a few extra letters and some that aren't pronounced the same way. It is also, for the most part, not phoentic. Very guttural, who words having 6 or so letters tacked on the end with no vowels. Dad jokes that that is when you swallow, and the sound of the gulp is the sound of the last half of the words. hehe After exchanging pleasntries when we arrived we sat down to another multi course meal. It was soo much food! I did try the traditional Danish alcohol, akvavite. Delicious, similar to vodka but actually has a flavor! hehe. I plan on bringing back at least one bottle to share with friends. Through conversation we learned that the Danish do not have a word for please, which at first struck me as odd, but then made sense with my other observations of them in action. The trip and meal took all day, so not much else to talk about. Back to sightseeing tomorrow. Legoland is closed for the winter, opens in spring, makes me very sad.

Denmark Day 6

Monday, December 25, 2006

Day 6: Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a Xanga update! hehe. Still quiet in Denmark, but not as quiet as yesterday. Lots of families with children with their new toys walking about. Didn't really do much today besides dinner, it has just been a relaxing time. Watched a couple Christmas specials on the BBC which were hysterical, gotta love British comedy! and in one instance we were "lucky" enough to catch a Danish Christmas Eve extravaganza type show...let me tell you, the choreographed break dancing/disco Santas really pushed it over the edge into fabulously bad. hehe. There have got to be a dozen churches in the vicinity of dad's apartment, you can hear beautiful bells every hour or so. The 8:00 ones are actually dad's alarm clock! On to dinner. My goodness it was grandiose. I wore a tie and everything, really pish posh restaurant. Mom had a 4 course meal and they brought new silverware for each meal and explained everything that was prepared on the dishes as they presented them. It was really high class. Dad, Em, and I had Lobster Bisque and Veal, and those dishes with Mom's 4 course meal and our drinks costs a little under 3200 Kroner...which is almost $550! Wow!!! Water is not free in Denmark, and you have to order it "still" because the default choice is carbonated or "sparkling". It was just an unreal dinner. It even lasted 3 hours! We are currently watching the Dallas Cowboys take on the Philadelphia Eagles in Danish. The commentary is really funny. Lots of Danish with "touchdown" and "incomplete pass" and other phrases in English snuck in. They scream at every exciting play, so much funnier in Danish than in English. hehe. We plan on resuming some site seeing tomorrow and actually taking a train out of the major city. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE!!