Cead mille failte (a hundred thousand welcomes)

It's been such a fun, relaxing week in Ireland. Wednesday morning we drove up to Dublin to take the Crowleys to the airport. They're in England now for a few days visiting some friends and hopefully having a wonderful time. On the way back from Dublin we drove down to Wexford and walked around and had lunch - pretty little town with a nice harbor. Yesterday we went to the Rock of Cashel, which is a medieval fortress-turned-cathedral and then tried to go to the Swiss Cottage which is a pretty hunting cottage from the early 1800s made to look like a Swiss chalet. It was closed for the season and under construction but we managed to climb over the fence and through the woods to see it :) Didn't get any good pictures, unfortunately; couldn't risk the noise and the flash so close to the construction workers. Today we tried to go to the monastery at Kells (birthplace of the Book of Kells) but that was also closed. Still it's always nice driving through the countryside.

Random fun Ireland trivia:

On the west coast of Ireland they refer to Boston as "the next parish over." Isn't that cute?

Right now in Ireland they have a funny (if oddly intense) anti-littering radio campaign that we love. It goes something like this: "Littering is disgusting and so are those who do it. If you act like filth, you'll be treated like filth." We get a kick out of that every time.


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Blarmy!

Someone has stolen 180 kegs of Guinness (worth 64,000 Euro!) from the Brewery in Dublin!
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Happy Thanksgiving!

It's been a long time since we've posted! We don't remember when we last wrote but we think it was before Frankfurt so we'll start there.

Frankfurt was great - it was nice to be back in Germany (seemed so familiar and easy after Greece!) and the city was one of our favorites so far. We went to the zoo last Tuesday, which was fun.

Wednesday we flew to Dublin where we met up with Cathy/Mom! We were so excited to see our parents and be back in Ireland (we were here for 3 weeks in 2004). We LOVE Ireland. We went straight to Galway from the airport and had a fun bus ride of chatting and catching up. Friday we had a really great day. We rented a car and drove down the lovely west coast to the Cliffs of Moher then stopped in Lisdoonvarna for a fun lunch on the way back.

Friday we went back to Dublin and met up with Kathy/Mom and Pat/Dad and it was just so fun to be all together. We went to the always-entertaining Guinness Brewery and to Temple Bar for dinner, then out to a fun pub that had a great guy singing some good old-fashioned drinking songs. Saturday we took a bus tour, saw the Book of Kells and the Old Library at Trinity, did some shopping and enjoyed all of the lovely Christmas lights strung in the streets.

Sunday morning Cathy/Mom had to leave early from Dublin and then the rest of us drove down to the nice place we're staying at the Knocktopher Abbey. It's a lovely little apartment in a small town only about 20 minutes from Kilkenny. The city of Kilkenny is pretty and fun, with lots of little shops and restaurants. We stopped in a pub that, according to legend, used to be the residence of the only woman ever burned as a witch in Ireland. True? Maybe. We had fun either way.

Today we went down to the Waterford Crystal factory, which was really interesting. Waterford is also a nice town, they're all so pretty and charming.

It's been so fun to have our parents here, we wish they could all stay longer. So nice to see some familiar faces after being only with each other for so long! And it worked out really well that we could meet up in Ireland. It's such a wonderful, magical place and every time we're here we want to stay. It was also a good place to come because the Crowleys are from Ireland, of course, so it's an extra special place to visit. Unfortunately, we only know that the family came from County Cork, nothing more specific, so we weren't able to track down a home town or anything. That will have to be saved for another trip!

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EasyCruising the Peloponnese

So, while we were very glad that our cheap sketchy cruise did turn out to be on an actual cruise ship, it does turn out to be true that you get what you pay for. We have a tiny stuffy room, the meals and drinks are grossly overpriced, the staff are quite frankly rude, and the DJ last night played a full Madonna album with no breaks. Despite these things, we have been having quite a lovely time!

Yesterday we were in Corinth. We learned some interesting things, such as the book of Paul's letters to the Corinthians in the Bible is documentation from St Paul's visits to Corinth during which he was disgusted by the wealthy, privileged Corinthians' gluttony and lasciviousness (they were very wealthy because they controlled the narrow isthmus between the Aegean and Ionian Seas). It was settled in the TENTH century BC!! We also learned that the fruits called currants derive their name from Corinth; they used to be called raisins of Corinth.

We can't afford to go on all of the expeditions so yesterday we wandered the city on our own. Of course the boat drops us off in the dirtiest, shadiest section of town so it's not too fun to stroll. But we did find a litter of newborn puppies in a parking lot - very fun - and we had our own wonderful little "back door" experience buying lunch. We were really hungry and looking for a cafe where we could get something safe like gyros but we came across this tiny shop where they were roasting whole chickens and decided to go in. There were only a few locals inside and one guy, after hearing us speak English, assured us that this was "very special chicken." There was no menu so we were a bit lost but all the servers and customers joined together to help us get our food. A few people spoke a little English each so they were all trying to ask what we wanted and we were just pointing and saying "thank you" over and over. Everyone just seemed so friendly and genuinely excited that we would come into their tiny little shop and we were all happy and enjoying the experience. The old guy doing the cooking spoke no English at all but he seemed especially excited to have us there and he insisted that we take some free fries right out of the cooker - he brought the whole tray out to us so we could pick our own. It was just really fun and nice, and the chicken was delicious! Last night we went to a wine tasting on the ship that was fun and then we decided to go in the hot tub since it was abandoned; seems like most of our fellow travelers have even earlier bedtimes than we do... and that's really saying something!

Today we are at the island of Ithaki (Ithaca). We were so close to renting a car for the day but in the end it was just too pricey. Unfortunately it's not possible to rent scooters at this time of year - they only get insurance coverage for high tourist season. So we went for a hike to the "Cave of the Nymphs" instead, which turned out to be utterly abandoned and very dark and scary. But it was a beautiful walk. The chain of islands is so beautiful; it's just mountain after mountain stretching up out of the water for as far as you can see. We played Trivial Pursuit this afternoon because it got pretty windy and chilly. There was actually one clue under history or something that said "budget cruise company founded in the 1990s" and it was easycruise, the one we are on right now!!! What a coincidence! Then had a lovely dinner at a taverna in town and had ouzo, a fun anise-flavored Greek drink, and sat around for a few hours before coming back to the ship. At 9:30 tonight is a disco-dance contest that we're looking forward to, but only if other people are dancing too! And Ed has vowed that he will not compete unless the winner gets a prize.

Tomorrow and Thursday we are doing the guided expeditions: one to Olympia for the original site of the Olympics and one to Delphi to learn about the Oracles! Should be fun!

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It's all Greek to me

Imagine waking up to find yourself in a strange land where they draw diagrams of the solar system to write words and they speak by clucking like chickens. That is approximately how baffled we are by the Greek language. There is no hope of communication while we're here.

But it is very beautiful and luckily our sketchy cruise is actually a cruise, on a big ship, with other passengers and bars and Greek night and salsa lessons! Who knew that would really work out?

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Athens

We arrived here in Athens a few hours ago after what we agreed was the scariest plane ride of our lives. This was due to the incredibly gusty winds combined with our little tiny plane. Reminiscent of the WildMaus rollercoaster at Oktoberfest. You know it's bad when everyone on board starts laughing and clapping loudly when the plane finally touched down, after ten minutes of complete silence when everyone was contemplating what their last words should be. Terrifying and we've never been happier to step inside an airport.

At the moment we're in some cafe and are waiting for a more acceptable time to eat. It seems that Greeks do not eat dinner until around 10pm. Tomorrow we're setting off for our cruise and hopefully will have time to do a little self-guided tour before we leave.

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Quite a busy few days! Yesterday morning we went to the Accademia and (finally!) saw the David and the Slaves. Absolutely even more breathtaking than we even expected, and we had pretty high expectations. We also went to San Marco and saw all of the Fra Angelico frescoes, including Marisa's favorite version of the Annunciation. That was all a wonderful start to the day. Then we had to pack up and leave Florence, which was sad. Such a magical city. We said goodbye to our charming (if slightly manic) hostel guy, Fernando - who also ran Chicago and Boston but the opposite years we did! Did we mention that already? - and took a bus to San Gimignano.

There's not a whole lot to do in the village of San Gimignano besides climb the towers for spectacular views, which we did. Then we sat on the church steps in the square and people-watched for an hour. Saw an adorably funny gathering of old men and women who all congregate on the square (bringing their own folding chairs) at dusk and sit there for a few hours, probably every night. Men in one row, women in another. What do they talk about every day?? We liked the town very much and stayed with a lovely old woman who spoke no English. Not sure whether we liked it better than Rothenburg in Germany, they are very similar.

This morning we got up early and took a bus to Siena where we spent an hour walking around with our 40lb packs looking for the train station. Ended up taking a bus. We did get to visit il Campo, where they have the famous horse race the Paleo, and that was something we had wanted to see so that was fun. Siena is beautiful, wish we'd had more time there.

We are now back in Roma for just one night and tomorrow morning we fly to Athens! Very excited for the cruise!!

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