[Updated 01:55 May 15: Insomnia in Roma]
Blogging on a daily basis is a bit of a challenge considering the time that we have available and access to high speed broadband so we've chosen to catalog the last week or so of our travels though select photos. Those who want to see the entire photo collection (now more than 1,500 photos) can email me and I can provide access to the Picasa private library. In the meantime, here are some photos in reverse chronological order.
1/ First photos from London. Finally, some comforts of city life. We spent our first day ambling through London and seeing the major sites, including going to the national gallery and enjoying the various eats. Among the first things on the checklist: get chinese food. We ate some mean chicken chow fun and won ton noodles in China town followed by a more cultural outing to the museum where we saw some Renoir, Da Vinci, etc. etc.
2/ We took the Stenna Ferry line back the way we came, from Rosalare to Fishguard. We created a pretty good sleepigng situation and in one of the booths. I figured it was okay since it was mostly Irish on the boat and they wouldn't be as angry over seeing this.
3/ Cork, Ireland. Cork was our final destination and incidentally favorite city in Ireland. There are a couple rivers that run through it and the folks seem most laid back and open to foreigners. Below are some pictures of Blarney Castle. There is a superstion that if you kiss the stone of Blarney you will be gifted with his talents, which was salesmanship / flattery. Of note: see difference between Baloney versus Blarney. Alas, Kathleen nor I kissed the stone. We didn't want to trouble the guys manning the stone with putting a layer of Purell on it. Plus, for some reason, Kahtleen keeps putting my occupation as "Sales" on all the debarkation slips. It was cute at first but now it is getting annoying. Needless to say, I didn't need to polish this silver tongue with anymore blarney stonage.
4/ Killarney / Muckross. Killarney is a country-side town. Its quite beuatiful with some dramatic natural scenery inluding sea, hills, steep mountains, desert and badlands all within a small area. The house below was home to Muckross (some guy who built a really phat house in front of a nice river setting) along the "Ring of Kerry" where we spent 3 hours driving through trecherous turns and oncoming semi trucks to view some dramatic scenes. Below are pictures from Ladies View as well as other pictureque stops. The last photo is an example of the Burens or as I like to call, the Badlands. It is pretty much empty out there as if nothing is alive except a handful of plants and tumbleweed. I've never seen anything like it before so it was neat. Writers have referred to the Burens as a desolate place, neither a tree to hang nor a river to drown oneself. Sweet! Why did we visit this place again? In any case, I couldn't help but to think the Ring of Kerry was where the Hobbit lived. Ay! One rrring of kerry to controls dem allr!
5/ Barnae. Barnae is a small seaside village near Galway. There we stayed at "The Twelve" a boutique hotel where all clocks are cleverly not working and pointed at twelve. Its also called Twelve because of the Twelve Pins of Connemara Mountains. I didn't get a chance to count each of the mountain tops, but I will take their word for it. They seem to fix a really good Irish Breakfast. The eggs here remind me of costa rica, they are farm raised so the yolk is actually orange versus the yellow variety you get in the US (which is probably made in China anyway). BTW, I have gone 7 days now without eating "Black Pudding," which is actually pork blood mixed with other chopped pieces of pork. I wish I had a picture of it - it seems like an innocuous circular hash brown. We stopped by some Druid ruins as well (yay) and also visited the Cliffs of Mohr, which were really neat and dramatic. It reminded me of Mendocino. BTW, Irish cows make great butter (the best I've ever tasted) but not so much steak (a bit tough and gamey). Lamb was good though (see Little Bo Beep - we ate him in true Cantonese fashion, stir fried with scallions). Just kidding- although the one thing that kept me going throughout the drive was scaring the lamb on the road by honking at them. It was hillarious (you had to be there). And no, I did not torture animals as a child.
6/ Trinity College and the Book of Kells. Or, should I say "Ay! di Book o' Kells"? We basically spent $35 to enter a museum on the book of kells. I'm not really sure what it is yet - I think it's a collection of stories writen / reproduced by the irish monetstaries. It was neat to learn about how they wrote and made books back in the day but the book itself wasn't all that interesting. I suppose if I learned more about how the stories parallel or orthogonalize (is this a word?) the Bible it would be more interesting and Da Vinci Code-ish. I'd be curious to read the dead sea scrolls and an analysis of it though. Anyway. Trinity college is really nice. It has a cobblestone square that is very classic and you get a strong sense of imposing academia there. It's similar to how I felt when I was first at Cal. The last picture is of the Guiness factory. Guiness is actually pretty good - particularly after 90 minutes of being marketed the unique and perfect-ness of guiness and climbing numerous stairs to be greated with a phenomenal view. Indeed, Guiness was a T&A errection services marketing man who laughed at Misseurs B&E. That said, it was a cool tour. The facilities of the tour were modern and nice yet it was lame at the same time: I expected to see the Guiness factory - the actual product being built. Instead, I saw lots of applications of LED technology displaying pictures attached to machines to make it feel like you were at the factory. That was lame. But you get a free pint of Guinness at the end.
7/ I think this is Kilkenny, Ireland. There is a really big castle there and we toured it. It was okay. I'm not really sure what I'm doing in the last picture of this segment. The tour guide in the castle was a bit of a douchebag. He had a strong Spanish accent but tried to make things more interesting by emphasizing his accent. For example, he would say "To your left is a libary. in the library you will see book cases. Book cases house books. Families would read books. Books about animals. Animals in Ireland. Ireland is good, no?"
8/ First day in Ireland. We took the Stena ferry over 3 hrs to Fishguard. There we stayed in Killkenny. This is a nice city - the dinner was actually really good. We both had lamb (bahhhh). It was goooood. I have no idea why Kathleen included this pic of fish and chips but her role is to take and segment the top 5 pictures for each day.
9/ Bath, UK. Bath is one of our favorite cities in the UK. It has the charm of Europe with the English-speaking and modern amenities you become accustomed to as an American. We stayed at the Duke's hotel and had a good day of touring. It was here where we learned about Black Pudding (pigs blood plus other pig stuff). Bath is famous for the Roman Baths that were built when the Romans conquered the country. The site itself is not that interesting but the surrounding area provides a nice 'slice of life.' That said, since I'm writing this in arrears, I would say of the big cities we've been to thus far: London is the most metropolitain and ethnic smorgesborg of all cities that we've been to. You can access everything and retain that european feel yet sense of efficient capitalism that drives America. Paris is passion for life, that is arts, food and socializing. Rome is free spirited and chaotic.
10/ Stonehedge. Stone hedge was a bit of a disappointment since it was rainy quite crazily. It was the one time on this trip where I wish I would have packed something: a sturdy umbrella. Instead, we trucked it through the thick rain and steep winds to see a supposed historical marvel. I'm not really sure why it's a world wonder and was certainly confused in the gift shop how there could be a book in excess of 500 pages dedicated to the 'hedge. Well, at least we can say we were there. Although, I would probably skip this. It is probably more or less of an excuse to spend an evening in the Engrish Countryside.
11/ Salsburry. I blogged about this already so I'll keep it short. Very nice scenery but much left to Kathleen's memories as I spent most of the time keeping our car on left hand side of the road.
12/ Leaving St. Thomas.
13/ Carnival and Leaving St. John. We attended the last day of Carnival or the "Adult Parade." Adult Parade doesn't mean NC17, it just means that it is primarily adults and there are some scantily clad BBW. Fortunately, we ate 2 hours ago and our food had passed the majority of our upper GIs to make it anyway other than down. All in all, it was a very lively event and it was cool to see a slice of local culture and music. For the first time, we saw the locals en force (versus hidden in the back roads or with a purchased smile from the hotels / resorts / restaurants) and it was a good to appreciate the laid back and genuinely happy go lucky nature of the aboriginal carribeans at play. The first picture is all the stuff that we are taking with us on the trip. Basically, two 3900 cc back packs and two 22 inch rollies. Technically we should be able to bring these on board and skip check out but packing uber efficient such to collapse the expandable bags takes a long time so we end up expanding them. We need to off load a bunch of things. We are starting to learn what it is important to pack versus not. Kathleen liked the last photo because it deals with weddings. Women... The other pictures below are of Bath as part of our trip to the British Virgin islands. You can see the hives that have developed in response to my body's rejection of tropical fauna and environments. Ever since I was a kid, I would get hives when I swam a lot. Kathleen thinks its because I was a sheltered child, growing up in a bubble and never exposing myself to germs and hence, feroscious reactions against bites, dust, pollen, etc. If this is the case, than Kathleen grew up in a mosquito net. She had more than 130 bites (can you say, suckuh!?) Anyway, its now a couple weeks later and no longer have hives and Kathleen's bites have healed. Although I was quite the leper on the boat to the British Virgin Islands as all 30 crew and passengers crowded to observe my hives.
Blogging on a daily basis is a bit of a challenge considering the time that we have available and access to high speed broadband so we've chosen to catalog the last week or so of our travels though select photos. Those who want to see the entire photo collection (now more than 1,500 photos) can email me and I can provide access to the Picasa private library. In the meantime, here are some photos in reverse chronological order.
1/ First photos from London. Finally, some comforts of city life. We spent our first day ambling through London and seeing the major sites, including going to the national gallery and enjoying the various eats. Among the first things on the checklist: get chinese food. We ate some mean chicken chow fun and won ton noodles in China town followed by a more cultural outing to the museum where we saw some Renoir, Da Vinci, etc. etc.
2/ We took the Stenna Ferry line back the way we came, from Rosalare to Fishguard. We created a pretty good sleepigng situation and in one of the booths. I figured it was okay since it was mostly Irish on the boat and they wouldn't be as angry over seeing this.
3/ Cork, Ireland. Cork was our final destination and incidentally favorite city in Ireland. There are a couple rivers that run through it and the folks seem most laid back and open to foreigners. Below are some pictures of Blarney Castle. There is a superstion that if you kiss the stone of Blarney you will be gifted with his talents, which was salesmanship / flattery. Of note: see difference between Baloney versus Blarney. Alas, Kathleen nor I kissed the stone. We didn't want to trouble the guys manning the stone with putting a layer of Purell on it. Plus, for some reason, Kahtleen keeps putting my occupation as "Sales" on all the debarkation slips. It was cute at first but now it is getting annoying. Needless to say, I didn't need to polish this silver tongue with anymore blarney stonage.
4/ Killarney / Muckross. Killarney is a country-side town. Its quite beuatiful with some dramatic natural scenery inluding sea, hills, steep mountains, desert and badlands all within a small area. The house below was home to Muckross (some guy who built a really phat house in front of a nice river setting) along the "Ring of Kerry" where we spent 3 hours driving through trecherous turns and oncoming semi trucks to view some dramatic scenes. Below are pictures from Ladies View as well as other pictureque stops. The last photo is an example of the Burens or as I like to call, the Badlands. It is pretty much empty out there as if nothing is alive except a handful of plants and tumbleweed. I've never seen anything like it before so it was neat. Writers have referred to the Burens as a desolate place, neither a tree to hang nor a river to drown oneself. Sweet! Why did we visit this place again? In any case, I couldn't help but to think the Ring of Kerry was where the Hobbit lived. Ay! One rrring of kerry to controls dem allr!
5/ Barnae. Barnae is a small seaside village near Galway. There we stayed at "The Twelve" a boutique hotel where all clocks are cleverly not working and pointed at twelve. Its also called Twelve because of the Twelve Pins of Connemara Mountains. I didn't get a chance to count each of the mountain tops, but I will take their word for it. They seem to fix a really good Irish Breakfast. The eggs here remind me of costa rica, they are farm raised so the yolk is actually orange versus the yellow variety you get in the US (which is probably made in China anyway). BTW, I have gone 7 days now without eating "Black Pudding," which is actually pork blood mixed with other chopped pieces of pork. I wish I had a picture of it - it seems like an innocuous circular hash brown. We stopped by some Druid ruins as well (yay) and also visited the Cliffs of Mohr, which were really neat and dramatic. It reminded me of Mendocino. BTW, Irish cows make great butter (the best I've ever tasted) but not so much steak (a bit tough and gamey). Lamb was good though (see Little Bo Beep - we ate him in true Cantonese fashion, stir fried with scallions). Just kidding- although the one thing that kept me going throughout the drive was scaring the lamb on the road by honking at them. It was hillarious (you had to be there). And no, I did not torture animals as a child.
6/ Trinity College and the Book of Kells. Or, should I say "Ay! di Book o' Kells"? We basically spent $35 to enter a museum on the book of kells. I'm not really sure what it is yet - I think it's a collection of stories writen / reproduced by the irish monetstaries. It was neat to learn about how they wrote and made books back in the day but the book itself wasn't all that interesting. I suppose if I learned more about how the stories parallel or orthogonalize (is this a word?) the Bible it would be more interesting and Da Vinci Code-ish. I'd be curious to read the dead sea scrolls and an analysis of it though. Anyway. Trinity college is really nice. It has a cobblestone square that is very classic and you get a strong sense of imposing academia there. It's similar to how I felt when I was first at Cal. The last picture is of the Guiness factory. Guiness is actually pretty good - particularly after 90 minutes of being marketed the unique and perfect-ness of guiness and climbing numerous stairs to be greated with a phenomenal view. Indeed, Guiness was a T&A errection services marketing man who laughed at Misseurs B&E. That said, it was a cool tour. The facilities of the tour were modern and nice yet it was lame at the same time: I expected to see the Guiness factory - the actual product being built. Instead, I saw lots of applications of LED technology displaying pictures attached to machines to make it feel like you were at the factory. That was lame. But you get a free pint of Guinness at the end.
7/ I think this is Kilkenny, Ireland. There is a really big castle there and we toured it. It was okay. I'm not really sure what I'm doing in the last picture of this segment. The tour guide in the castle was a bit of a douchebag. He had a strong Spanish accent but tried to make things more interesting by emphasizing his accent. For example, he would say "To your left is a libary. in the library you will see book cases. Book cases house books. Families would read books. Books about animals. Animals in Ireland. Ireland is good, no?"
8/ First day in Ireland. We took the Stena ferry over 3 hrs to Fishguard. There we stayed in Killkenny. This is a nice city - the dinner was actually really good. We both had lamb (bahhhh). It was goooood. I have no idea why Kathleen included this pic of fish and chips but her role is to take and segment the top 5 pictures for each day.
9/ Bath, UK. Bath is one of our favorite cities in the UK. It has the charm of Europe with the English-speaking and modern amenities you become accustomed to as an American. We stayed at the Duke's hotel and had a good day of touring. It was here where we learned about Black Pudding (pigs blood plus other pig stuff). Bath is famous for the Roman Baths that were built when the Romans conquered the country. The site itself is not that interesting but the surrounding area provides a nice 'slice of life.' That said, since I'm writing this in arrears, I would say of the big cities we've been to thus far: London is the most metropolitain and ethnic smorgesborg of all cities that we've been to. You can access everything and retain that european feel yet sense of efficient capitalism that drives America. Paris is passion for life, that is arts, food and socializing. Rome is free spirited and chaotic.
10/ Stonehedge. Stone hedge was a bit of a disappointment since it was rainy quite crazily. It was the one time on this trip where I wish I would have packed something: a sturdy umbrella. Instead, we trucked it through the thick rain and steep winds to see a supposed historical marvel. I'm not really sure why it's a world wonder and was certainly confused in the gift shop how there could be a book in excess of 500 pages dedicated to the 'hedge. Well, at least we can say we were there. Although, I would probably skip this. It is probably more or less of an excuse to spend an evening in the Engrish Countryside.
11/ Salsburry. I blogged about this already so I'll keep it short. Very nice scenery but much left to Kathleen's memories as I spent most of the time keeping our car on left hand side of the road.
12/ Leaving St. Thomas.
13/ Carnival and Leaving St. John. We attended the last day of Carnival or the "Adult Parade." Adult Parade doesn't mean NC17, it just means that it is primarily adults and there are some scantily clad BBW. Fortunately, we ate 2 hours ago and our food had passed the majority of our upper GIs to make it anyway other than down. All in all, it was a very lively event and it was cool to see a slice of local culture and music. For the first time, we saw the locals en force (versus hidden in the back roads or with a purchased smile from the hotels / resorts / restaurants) and it was a good to appreciate the laid back and genuinely happy go lucky nature of the aboriginal carribeans at play. The first picture is all the stuff that we are taking with us on the trip. Basically, two 3900 cc back packs and two 22 inch rollies. Technically we should be able to bring these on board and skip check out but packing uber efficient such to collapse the expandable bags takes a long time so we end up expanding them. We need to off load a bunch of things. We are starting to learn what it is important to pack versus not. Kathleen liked the last photo because it deals with weddings. Women... The other pictures below are of Bath as part of our trip to the British Virgin islands. You can see the hives that have developed in response to my body's rejection of tropical fauna and environments. Ever since I was a kid, I would get hives when I swam a lot. Kathleen thinks its because I was a sheltered child, growing up in a bubble and never exposing myself to germs and hence, feroscious reactions against bites, dust, pollen, etc. If this is the case, than Kathleen grew up in a mosquito net. She had more than 130 bites (can you say, suckuh!?) Anyway, its now a couple weeks later and no longer have hives and Kathleen's bites have healed. Although I was quite the leper on the boat to the British Virgin Islands as all 30 crew and passengers crowded to observe my hives.
3 comments:
Looks like you both are having a fabulous time! I love reading your blog, gives me some great ideas of where we need to visit :) Can't wait to read more!
Nice pics guys! It looks totally awesome out there. Your Guiness pic made me want to go out and grab a brew. Did you guys paintball the sheeps ass? :)
Jerry
Why is that lamb's bottom all red???? HMMMMMMMMMM??? I don't buy the claim that you don't abuse animals!
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