Return to Dublin

Guess I better update this blog, especially since we are going away this weekend for my birthday and I'm sure I'll have lots to tell when we return. Well, I returned to Dublin back in early October to continue my family research. It has been such a special thing for me to undertake. Both sets of grandparents died when I was young and so did my father. So, the more I can find out about any branch of my family tree the better. I am tracing my maternal grandfather's family, whose parents immigrated to Pennsylvania from Ireland sometime between 1902-1910. I have been fortunate to find birth records, one showing that I share a birthday with a great-great uncle (November 24). On this recent trip, I also found land records pertaining to the land my family occupied at the time of my earliest records. It appears that the land on which they lived from the mid-1800s is still in the family today! I even have a land map showing the plots. My dream would be to go to the townland of Fahy, in the parish of Clifden in Galway County, and walk the ground that my ancestors did. I'm sure I share dreams of many family researchers when I imagine going to the "homeland" and meeting people that share the same family ties.

Irish Life Center

Unfortunately, I only allowed myself one day longer than the last trip. I'm sure I can make a couple weeks or more out of it, though. One place and record leads you to another place and then back to somewhere you've already been before, and around it goes. Even though I was on my own, I did not have to spend the evenings holed up in my hotel room. Matt's company has an office in Dublin and I've previously met some of his colleagues from the city. The first night I met up with Vanessa, who is from Denver like ourselves. The second night I met up with Marta, who is from Poland. She and I went to a Cajun-Creole restaurant near the Temple Bar area, for something new and different. On my last evening, Vanessa invited me to her home in Booterstown to dine with her family. Booterstown is basically a suburb of Dublin and just a short tram ride away. I had a lovely time all around and hope it isn't the last time I see them or visit Dublin.

Yummm. Buttermilk pancakes and bacon! (No I didn't eat all of that bacon.)

View from my hotel room - Tanta Zoe's (Cajun-Creole Restaurant)

Arriving in Booterstown

Stratford-Upon-Avon

On Saturday, September 20th we found ourselves on the road again. We had cabin fever and decided to drive to Stratford-Upon-Avon, Shakespeare's Birthplace, for the afternoon. I don't know why we do this, but we end up sitting around all morning debating what to do then finally decide after lunch, which inevitably includes a drive of more than an hour. From there we scramble to shower and such and then jump in the car. Our drive to Stratford-upon-Avon, not to be confused with Stratford, was about a two-hour drive one way. Once we got there we parked near the town centre and strolled through the high street, stopping at Shakespeare's birth home, and continuing to the riverfront.

At the riverfront we decided to hire (a.k.a. rent) a boat for a while. Our options were a row boat or a motorized boat. Feeling adventurous, and wanting to save a bit of money, we chose the row boat for an hour. Our plan was that Matt would row for the first half hour and I would for the second half. Well, it definitely looks easier than it is. Matt did a great job getting us around but when I took over we were still in practically the same spot after five minutes and heading towards moored canal boats. Oops! So, Matt graciously rowed us back to the dock. Unfortunately we only managed to use about 35 minutes of our time, but we had great fun doing it. When stepping out of the boat Matt told the guy "that he ran out of gas"! Haha! Cheyenne enjoyed the ride as she watched all of the swans floating about. Given the chance, she would have jumped out of the boat and swam after them! So, now we can say we rowed the River Avon! You know, it doesn't take much to entertain me and I am a sucker for any boat ride or carriage ride. Whatever new city we go to I always try to talk Matt into one or the other or both. Usually he just responds with " if you've seen/done one, you've seen/done them all". I would disagree, of course.

A Home away from Home away from Home

You read that right, Matt now has a flat in Gdansk. He has taken on a new role within the company and will be in Gdansk even more often now. Actually, this started back in August/September, but I am just now getting around to posting about it. On our August trip we went flat-hunting and in early September we moved into the flat. I say 'we' only because I was there for the first week (Sept 6-12) and the housewarming party, but it really is Matt's place and I have not been there since. This is a company flat and I believe that they may keep it on even after Matt's departure. It is within walking distance from the office and Matt says that from the time he gets on the elevator at work to the time he is entering the flat building it is 6 minutes.

So, not only do we have a home in England away from our home in Colorado, we now have a home in Poland. (Our heart still lies with the one in Colorado.) It definitely makes those weekly travels easier on Matt because he has his own place to go back to after a long day at work, rather than any given hotel for the week. Plus, it is a pretty nice place overall and is a new build. In fact, the complex is a gated community and is still in development.

Matt has really fallen for Poland. Well, all we've seen really is the Tri-City area, but the people are friendly and happy, the food is wonderful, and he has a great relationship with his colleagues. I think it will be hard for him to leave next year. Hopefully we'll always have friends in the area and can return for a visit.

Okay, it is too early to get emotional about leaving, so I'll talk about our housewarming party. Apparently this is quite a tradition and some of his colleagues were disappointed that he did not have a party scheduled. So, with just a day notice we invited everyone over on a Saturday evening. There are about 100 people in his office, so we had no idea how many people would actually show up. Our flat is very tiny, as you would expect, so that was the only thing we were nervouse about. In the end, I think there were 30 or so people there. It just so happened, though, that it was the warmest night in a while and it was quite warm in the place even with windows and doors open. At about 1:30am when most of the guest were gone, the few stragglers invited us out to continue the party in Sopot. We hailed taxis and went to a bar/club in Sopot. It wasn't what I was expecting, but we ended up dancing and drinking until about 3:30am. Matt and I finally said our goodbyes and went home to sleep. We left all of the cleaning up for the morning!

I flew in that Saturday morning and we had just enough time to do a bit of grocery shopping (quite interesting), tidy up the flat, and prepare the bits of food we purchased. Of course we served Polish Kielbasa! We knew our guests would probably bring lots of vodka and wine, so we didn't purchase much of that. There is still beer, wine, and vodka left in the flat. We'll need to throw another party just to get rid of it! Unfortunately we can't bring it all back with us.

Vacation in France & Germany (+Austria)

Hello all,

Since Amber has been slacking off lately with the blog, I decided to write something about our trip in August to France, Germany and Austria.

Just to start off, I have to say that I didn't turn my blackberry on the entire time, so I was able to thoroughly enjoy the trip!!!

Train at Ebbsfleet

We started off taking the train from London to Paris; it was an early departure at 6:30am, but meant we had a full day in Paris. The Eurostar travels at about 185 MPH between the two cities, but so smooth that I slept the whole way for the 2 hour journey. After checking into our quaint hotel (with a 'view' of the Eiffel tower.....if you hang out the window far enough), we started by checking out one of the most visited attractions in Paris. We decided to take the stairs instead of the elevator up to the 1st and 2nd levels to avoid the long lines, but the walk wasn't so bad. From the 2nd level, you can oversee much of Paris and really get a good panoramic view of Paris. We had lunch on the 2nd level before descending back for a bus tour of Paris and to head back for a nap before our bike tour that evening. I also stopped by the local grocery store to buy some food for dinner and forgot to weigh the bananas before getting to the checkout. It was one of those embarrasing moments where the clerk was trying to tell me in French that I needed to weigh the bananas while lots of people were behind me in line, but I had no clue what he was saying. Luckily, I figured out the fruit weighing machine and made my way on. That evening, we decided to do a 'Fat Tire' bike tour. It is run by American students and mainly contains only American tourists and they take you all over Paris on beach cruiser bikes. It was 4 hours long, but included stops along the way to look at various sites, a ride on a river boat cruise along the Seine, and also a stop for ice cream at a famous Paris parlor. The distance wasn't very long for me as an avid bicyclist, but needless to say, Amber wasn't able to walk very well the next day due to the stair climb and the bike ride. It was really fun, though, and I would recommend it as a way to see new cities.

View from our Hotel

Eiffel Tower at Night

One of the other main highlights of our trip to Paris was a day trip to the Palace of Versailles. It included the castle of King Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette and also on the grounds was the chateau of Marie and several other homes and a large garden area and ponds. We had lunch sitting by the pond and watching tourists paddling boats around the pond. The gardens were quite large and for the horticulturists out there, I image it is a splendid site to visit.

Palace and Gardens in Versaille

Other stops in Paris included the Louvre (former palace now an art gallery), Champs-Elysées (the famous street mall), Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, and many other sites we saw on the bike and bus tours, and river cruise.

At the Louvre

The next part of our adventure took us off to Berlin. We decided that we enjoyed training so much in Italy that we would train as much as possible on this trip as well, so we took the overnight train from Paris to Berlin. We left Paris at about 8pm and ended up in Berlin the next morning at 8am. We had our own private room with 2 bunkbeds and to be honest, it was really relaxing and enjoyable. I had my doubts about it and it was a little pricey, but I would definitely do it again.

In the train sleeper car

Once in Berlin, we were able to start using some of the German we had learned. Amber and I took lessons for about 8 months and I spent about 8 months travelling to Germany for work, so we know some of the language. Berlin is full of historical sites and quite a unique city. You can also still notice the differences between east and west Berlin. Our visits included the Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag/Bundestag (government building), Checkpoint Charlie (one of the entry points controlled by the US), and the Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe. We also did a bus tour and quite a bit of walking around the city. While there, I intoduced Amber to one of the favorite German restuarants, Vapiano. It is really Italian food, but they are based in Germany. While spending my time in Frankfurt, the team I was with enjoyed visiting the restaurant as the food is really good and the atmosphere as well. It is a mix between upscale fast food and casual dining with a custom made pizza, pasta, and salad bar where they make your food to order. Their website says 100 are coming to the US, so I am looking forward to going there when we move back.

Night view of the Brandenburg Gate

After Berlin, we made our way to Munich. This was the part of the trip I was looking forward to the most. Munich is known for their weissbeer (white beer). In a tight race with Belgium beers, weissbeer is one of my favorite beers. They also serve it in 1 liter mugs and so Amber insisted I try at least 1 liter per day, but may days, the 1st wasn't good enough, so I got a 2nd. Munich has the largest beergarden (Hofbrauhaus) in the world and of course we had to visit it. We only had a mug of beer and a pretzel while there, but it was a site nonetheless to see. We also tried German meatloaf, which is really a huge slab of Bologna, which was a disappointment for us considering we were looking forward to 'American' meatloaf.

Litre of beer at the Hofbrauhaus

While in Munich, we visited the memorial site setup at Dachau which was the first concentration camp during WWII. It was a somber experience, but really brought the history we learned into perspective. Definitely something you have to see before you truly have a sense for what happened during the times. The memorial is setup really well and tells the history of what happened through the camps timeperiod, but also some of the buildings are still there on the actual site, and you can go through them.

Entry to Dachau Memorial Site

Also from Munich, we took a day trip to Salzburg, Austria, again by train. Amber wanted to do the Sound of Music tour, so we made our way to famous Salzburg to check out the sites. We took a guided tour of the sites made famous by the movies. We used the Bob's Special Tours and they use 8 passenger vans instead of the big buses, so the experience was very personable. I didn't know this, but the Sound of Music is the 3rd best selling movie of all time domestically (behind Gone with the Wind and Star Wars -- adjusted for inflation), but many Austrians have never seen or heard of it and don't really know what all the hoopla in their town is all about (according to our guide). I like Austria (have visited Vienna several times for work) and have seen the movie, so it was actually interesting for me as well. Oh and by the way, there was weissbeer along the way, so that is all I needed to be happy. The tour not only took us around the town of Salzburg, but also up into the mountains surrounding Salzburg and into the Lake District for some wonderful views of the lakes. We saw the HQ of Red Bull which sits in the middle of a pond on concrete pods overlooking the lakes, what an inspiring view.

Lake District near Salzburg

Other attractions in Munich included visits to the Olympic village from 1972, the BMW manufacturing site, the Chinese Pagoda (with really good bratwurst curry and more beer), the English gardens, and the Museum of Transportation.

Meal at the Chinese Pagoda

Finally at the end of the Munich trip, we had to head back to London to collect our daughter and begin work again. It was a really enjoyable trip with lots of memorable destinations. Our next trip will be for Amber's 30th birthday in November and we are going to............not so fast, it's a surprise, so you'll have to wait and see in November. Be sure to check out the rest of the pictures in the photo books.

View of the Castle in Salzburg

Matt

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