The Friendly Skies

We're back from our long weekend. All of my airport security anxiety, seating assignment anxiety, screaming baby on the airplane anxiety a distant memory. We had terrific visits with my Illinois family and our Minneapolis friends, and we're glad to be back so we can transition smoothly into escrow anxiety, loan anxiety, and home inspection anxiety.

Unseasonably high temperatures in Chicago meant a nice afternoon trip to the park with my many little cousins, and included Samson's fist ride in a baby swing. Which. He. Loved. Yes, video will be posted soon enough. Unseasonably low temperatures in Minneapolis meant Samson's first glimpse of snow through the living room window, and it also meant that we spent the afternoon at the Mall of America instead of walking around one of the lakes because it was too damn cold for any outdoor shenanigans.



Samson did very well on all three planes, making friends and influencing people wherever he went. I won't say I'm in any sort of rush to fly with him again, but I'm much less scared of flying to Israel now. It may not be fun, but it certainly isn't as bad as it could be. It helps to be organized, prepared, and extremely flexible. Also prozac is helpful.

For reals this time

All right. We're in escrow, the loan is locked in and ready to go, I've signed my name about a billion times and initialed ten billion more times. The inspectors are scheduled for next Thursday. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Twelve hours from now, Samson will be on his first airplane trip, quietly playing with one of the forty eight toys that I've packed for him and razzing our neighbors. Mark my words.

Have a great weekend, everybody! Up, up and away!

Turkish Delight

We had a wonderful week in Turkey, a great last hurrah as my days of living in Europe, and flying at all, come to an end. What? What's that you say? You want to see pictures? Well, I'll have to see what I can do about that. Let's start with 42 of the 143 pictures from the digital camera, and I'll follow up later this week with the 6 rolls of film from various Lomo, action samplers, and underwater cameras. Yikes!

Highlights:

Seeing our friends from Israel. Since none of them will be able to make it out to SF for the wedding in August, we invited everyone to join us in Bodrum for a pre-wedding celebration. Remember, these are the same people who engineered and produced the famous zombie engagement of 2005, so it was no surprise when they surprised us with a mock wedding on Friday night, complete with a rabbi, a priest, and Elvis. It was terrific--and good practice for the real thing! Only 74 days!



Boat trip on a Turkish Yacht. We spent all day Saturday cruising around the Aegean Sea, snorkeling, and soaking up the sun. It was my first time snorkeling and I had such a blast. The water wasn't the most tropical, most of the fish were pretty much sand and water colored with a few blue or orange guys swimming around. But between the snorkel mask and my contact lenses, I think it was the first time I've ever actually seen underwater. It's a whole new world, and I want to live in that world all the time. And then there was the ice cream boat at one of the snorkeling stops. Genius!



Turkey is also the land of meat on a stick. I've eaten enough kebabs in the last week to last 2 lifetimes. And the cherries! The had these really big, juicy cherries at our local fruit and veg market, plus every restaurant and mini market and grocery store has cherry juice--the ice cream vendors on the beach promenade even have cherry ice cream! I got my fill of my favorite fruit flavor in all of it's various forms. Delicious.

Then there was the Hamam (Turkish Bath). What a weirdly fun experience! We skipped the sauna portion of the bath on account of baby Samson, but the soap massage was out of this world and the oil massage was to die for. The whole thing was made even more hilarious by the super friendly Turkish guy in a skirt and a Beckham jersey who dried us off after the soap massage. What a surreal time that was.

It was hard to come back to Dublin, especially considering that the weather was crap yesterday, but it's kind of nice to be back. I'm in the home stretch now, only one more month until I go home. I'm starting to get bigger, and next week marks the half way point in my pregnancy, so it will be great to get back to the Bay Area and be able to start the next chapter of my life. As much fun as I've had living in Europe the past year, I'm ready to be somewhere that we can stay for a few years, to have the dogs and cats back in my life, to go back to the office, all that stuff. Not that the next year will bring anything resembling peace and quiet, I realize that. But it's going to be such a great thing to start our new family, and I can hardly wait.

Scottish Road Trip

It turns out that I was quite ambitious in my Scottish trip planning, as far as distances between destinations go. We did a ton of driving over the bank holiday weekend, and we saw an awful lot of Scotland. The iPod rwally came in handy, providing us with 3 days of extra super fantastic driving tunes, from Weezer to Neil Diamond to David Bowie to Neko Case. Of course, it was amazing! We spent most of the time in Highlands which is known as the UK's wilderness area. There were tons of lochs, dozens of castles and ruins, and copious amounts of sheep and pheasants. Pictures are up at Picasa Web, and I apologize for the obvious lack of sheep.



On Saturday, we took the ferry from Northern Ireland to Southern Scotland and proceeded to drive up the west coast along Loch Lomond to the lower-to-central Highlands, spending the night in a wonderful hotel in Ballachulish. Max encouraged me to try the haggis, and I have to admit, it was pretty darn tasty. I won't be rushing over to the interweb to look for any recipes, but I did enjoy it.



Sunday was whiskey day, and we drove through the Highlands up to Loch Ness and east to the River Spey where a good deal of Scottish single malt whiskey is distilled. On the way to our first distillery tour of the day, we stopped on the Glenlivet estate for Max to try his hand at clay pigeon shooting. (No clay pigeons we're harmed, but Max's shoulder is a bit worse for wear.) We toured The Glenlivet and Glenfiddich distilleries, learning the intricate differences between Scottish and Irish whiskey--Max is a total expert at this point. We also happened upon the annual Speyside Whiskey Festival which brought together a lot of smaller, independent distilleries--and more tasting. It was beautiful driving, and a lot of fun. To top it all off, we stayed the night in an old castle that had been converted into a hotel. It was really something special, and the grounds were astounding, not to mention the food and hospitality.



We started off bright and early Monday morning to make the long drive down through Braemor, Perth, and Glasgow back to the west coast to catch out ferry back to Northern Ireland. The weather was dramatic and mixed, with lots of heavy spells of rain and bright sun and rainbows all over. We drove the last leg down from Belfast to Dublin and arrived home as two very tired, but very happy and satisfied road trippers.

Next trip: Bodrum, Turkey in a few weeks, followed by Spain in June.

Eastward and Upwards

We're off to Scotland tomorrow morning, bright and early. We'll be driving up to the North then taking the ferry across form there. Then it's on to the Highlands (there can be only one) for whiskey tasting, haggis eating, and castle sleeping-in-ing. Huzzah!

And then, of course, there's the elusive scotch egg.

Countdown to Home

I bought my plane ticket home yesterday which is, at the same time, wonderful and sad. Mostly wonderful, because it means that in 10 short weeks I get to be reunited with all things furry and slobbery. It means I get to go back to San Francisco, I get to back to the office, I get to drive and go to Target and see people that I like more often and make more wedding plans and shop for tiny baby-sized goodies. But it also means that I only have 10 weeks left to go and do and see, not only in Ireland but in the rest of Europe as well. I've had such a terrific time traveling around and seeing so many amazing places, and I know that baby on the way means putting that sort of thing on hold for a while, so I want to cram as much of it in as possible.

Let's recap the extra super fantasticness of it all, shall we?

Portugal, September 2006



Italy, October 2006



London, October 2006,



Central Ireland, November 2006



Israel, December 2006



Western Ireland, January 2007



Northern Ireland, February 2007



Euro Disney, February 2007



Paris, February 2007



London, March 2007



Southern Ireland, March 2007



Scheduled upcoming trips:

Turkey in June 2007

Upcoming trips that are still in the works:

Scotland

Barcelona

Southwestern Ireland

Where, oh where has my extra super fantastic blogger gone?

I've gone to wonderful and amazing places! Like Giant's Causeway:



And Glenveagh Castle and Gardens:



And the Waterford Crystal Factory Tour:



And the Old Midleton Whiskey Distillery:



And the Blarney Stone!



Did you know that in order to kiss the Blarney Stone you have to hang backwards over the edge of a very tall castle while an old, whistling Irish man grasps your midsection? Because you do.

My mom has been visiting from California this week, and she brought the sunny skies with her. We've been touring Ireland in our trusty rental car and having a brilliant time (as they say here). The days have simply flown by, and, sadly, Mom goes home tomorrow. But she definitely got her fill of sheep, scones and thick Irish brogues. Come back any time, Mom!

Don't You Forget About Me

Boy, have I ever been MIA. Incommunicado. Fallen off the face of the earth. And what's worse, I've left that clip from the Sarah Silverman Program as my last post for people to see when they check in on the blog. Not my finest bit of blogging. Oh well.

I've been in San Francisco since Friday (technically, Foster City and Palo Alto), and the weather alone has made me consider skipping out on my flight back to Dublin on Sunday. 70's and 80's, clear blue skies--flip flop weather. It's been great being back in the office this week, actually seeing and talking to people during the day. It's a big change from my life as a Dublin hermit, and a very healthy addition to my daily routine. As much as I'll miss Ireland and Europe, I'm looking forward to coming back to a place where I can interact with friends and family on a level other than email and long-distance, time-zone impaired phone calls.

Lots of extra super fantastic things have happened since I got here. Beli Deli sandwiches. An A+ grade on my checkup at the dentist. More Nanna belly than you can shake a stick at. Alaskan King Crab legs. Pie day. Sharks hockey. Hugs from my local nearest and dearest. And even though my peeps in Oregon, Texas, Colorado and Minnesota aren't represented, I feel a little closer to them than normal.

Cheerio Gov

I'm off to London tomorrow to visit my soon-to-be-brother-and-sister-in-law. I love these city breaks that one can take while living in Europe. Barely an hour on a plane and I can spend the day site-seeing, eating at new restaurants, seeing dear-but-not-so-near ones. I'd like to take a lot more of these city breaks over the next 6 months--Barcelona, Berlin, Prague, Dubrovnik. Even though I hardly spend a weekend in Dublin anymore, it still feels like there's so much more to see and there's no way I'll even see a tiny chunk of it. I've got to knock the holiday machine into high-gear. I mean, how often do you get the chance to live in Europe for a year? The smart readers of this blog will promptly buy stock in Aer Lingus.

Home Sweet Home

I'm back, and glad to be home. I had a great vacation-slash-business trip, but nothing says lovin' like coming home to a house full of animals. Still, I'm not sure I appreciate the language of cat, even if they're saying nice things. Miru will compassionately take the time out of his busy schedule (which includes, but is not limited to, sunning, licking, and sleeping) to tell me that he misses me, and wishes I'd come home by throwing up at the foot of the stairs. Sweet guy. And he graciously welcomes me home by sticking his tail in my face. Lovely. Really.

Cat behavior aside, it was great to spend the weekend puttering, knitting and laundering. And Nanna is always pretty clingy the first few days after I come back from traveling, so I get a couple nights of super cuddle dog extreme, before she reverts back to her normal teenage girl-esque self ("God, Mother I hate you! You are so embarrassing! I can't "wait to move out!").

At least I'll always have Ozzy, the Gomer Pyle of dogs.



By the way, this was my view from the plane on the way to Portland--that's the one and only Sutro Tower peeking out above the fog. I love 6 am flights out of SFO!