The End of Our European Adventure: Part One

Once again, this absence is far to long, and completely unwarranted.  Sure, I’ve been busy since I got home.  But not too busy.  I partially blame myself, for not feeling motivated to finish my blog.  I partially toss the blame to Jon, saying that I’m not ready to finish it until I get my pictures from him, to which he replies “I have four months of pictures to go through, you’ll get them when I get to them.”  Does he really expect me to wait?  I guess so.

I think the real problem is that, finishing the blog means that my trip is officially over.  And as excited as I was to come home and see my friends and family, I’m not ready for it to be over.  I’m ready to go back.  We’ll come back to that in a few more posts.

So, my job right this moment is to tell you about my last few days in Ireland, and our trip home.

Dublin was wonderful, as always.  Jenna was very welcoming, and we had yet another fantastic weekend with her.  We did a lot of walking, a lot of sight seeing, and surprisingly a lot of learning.  The Sunday afternoon we were there, we spent in Dublin’s Archaeology Museum with her mentor for her internship, who happens to be an archaeologist!  Neat!  It was a surprisingly busy afternoon at the museum, but we managed to huddle close as she explained the significance of some of the artifacts in the museum.  Our group grew in numbers as we went along too; I guess they thought we were a free tour?  Also, I learned that not all archaeologists like ancient Egypt.  Apparently it scares her.  Who knew!

We ate some wonderful food (battered fried sausage and chips is a close rival to my favorite fish and chips!), we enjoyed a few drinks, and soaked in the sights.  For the most part the weather was beautiful, except Sunday afternoon.  Before we knew it, Monday night was upon us and it was time to start packing and thinking seriously about a good night’s sleep.  Funny how when sleep is important, you don’t go to bed until well past midnight.

Tuesday morning ran pretty smoothly.  I got up early, showered, and had all our bags fully packed before Jon got up.  Since he’s a serious pain in the morning, I figured that would be a better way to start.  I unfortunately had to leave my walking stick in Dublin so Jon could try and get his through security.  He was far more attached to his, since he made it, and I decided that the chances of two people using them as a crutch would look a little suspicious.

We left after an abundance of hugs before Jenna even left for work, and headed to the bus stop.  The very friendly bus driver made sure we got off at the right stop for our terminal, and we were on our way.

Of course, the first thing I notice as I’m dreading the 4 flights ahead of us, is that there’s a flight directly from Dublin to Orlando.  Seriously?  I don’t know if we even thought to check Orlando flights.  Regardless, I had a gut feeling those tickets probably cost a fortune, and didn’t mind that we weren’t going on that flight as soon as I noticed it was United.

As we go through the daily airport grind, Jon still with his walking stick in hand, it still hadn’t hit me that I was leaving this beautiful country.  It takes until I’m physically sitting in my seat (an exit row seat thanks to Jon’s wonderful timing!) that I start to feel sad for all those “I can’t wait to be home” wishes.  And by then, it was of course too late.

The flights really weren’t that bad.  I had never flown US Airways before, but I can tell you that if they’re an option in the future, I wouldn’t mind doing so again.  Obviously with exit row seats on our longest flight, it was considerably more comfortable than our flights into Europe, but even our domestic flights from Philadelphia to Chicago, Chicago to Charlotte, and Charlotte to Tampa had ample leg room for me, and even enough for Jon.  That’s quite a feat!  We only got food on our international flight (which was pretty good, I might add), but the usual beverage service on the rest.  We had some delays (which made our short layovers in each city a little stressful at times), but all and all, the experience wasn’t awful.  The only plane I slept on was the last one, but by then I had been up for nearly 24 hours anyway, so I guess that’s okay.  The in-flight entertainment on the long flight wasn’t bad; that surfer movie about Bethany Hamilton, and Marley and Me.  A great movie, though I wonder if I was the only one with tears in my eyes.  Jon had to stop watching it.  He won’t shy from saying that movies with dogs are the only type that “move” him.

Once we landed in Tampa, well past our planned midnight arrival, I went from complete exhaustion to that exhausted slap-happy phase.  Knowing that Cristina and Jon’s mom were waiting for us, every step of the de-boarding process seemed to take forever.  When we finally turned the corner in the terminal and saw them, I was so excited to be home.  It didn’t hurt that Cristina had made us signs to welcome us, saying “Welcome Home” in every language of every country we went too, plus Dutch!

After going through baggage claim, we were on our way to the beloved Taco Bus.  We took the time to enjoy our meal there, and went home.  We didn’t hesitate to put on our suits and jump in the pool.  We lasted a while too, considering the pool closes at 11, but we were eventually kicked out.  We proceeded to do a little unpacking, to share little souvenirs, and some much needed laundry.  Some very much needed laundry.  Jon went to sleep at around 3, to catch a little nap before having to take his mom back to the airport.  She made an unfortunate scheduling mistake when planning a business trip, but at least we got to see her briefly.  I fought to stay awake until the two of them left, and then left Cristina to enjoy the quiet living room and get some sleep.  I practically melted into my bed.  I had forgotten how comfortable it was.  I don’t even think I noticed when Jon joined me again after his trip to the airport.

And for now, I’ll leave you with this picture Jon’s mom managed to catch before leaving the airport. 

Beirlín, Baile Átha Cliath agus Jenna! Gach in aon lá amháin!

First, I know what you’re thinking if you’ve been paying attention to the language of my subjects; yes, they obviously speak English in Ireland, but I thought it would be more fitting if I kept with this theme until we got back to the states, and chose Gaelic instead.  It’s really different, but cool.  Anyway, on to the post!

So after getting on the train, figuring out how to buy our ticket, and sitting down for our hour-long train back to Berlin, I found myself looking out the window with this longing to come back to this beautiful country; on different terms.  It really is beautiful, so organized, and just generally adorable.  It was then that I decided that this awful HelpX experience wasn’t going to ruin my impression of the entire country, because that just isn’t fair.

When we arrived in Berlin, we searched for lockers to put our luggage in, ate some more breakfast, and set off to enjoy our few hours in Berlin before our flight that afternoon.  The area of Berlin we were in was really nice, even though we had no idea was we were looking at.  We just did a lot of walking, enjoying the clean streets, sausages, pretzels, free apples and the beautiful sun above our heads.

As we started to head back to the train station to catch our train to the airport, I started getting really anxious.  Every passing hour I’d look at my watch and exclaim “ONLY __ MORE HOURS UNTIL WE GET TO SEE JENNA!”  I’m sure Jon thought I was a complete dork, but I couldn’t help it.  5 months without seeing anyone I knew from home, of course I was excited.

Getting to the airport was interesting.  We forgot to validate our ticket before we got on the train, so we were freaking out trying to figure out what to do, since we had already sat down.  So Jon hopped off the train at one of the stops, bolted to a validation box, and managed to get them validated and back on the train before it set off again.  Naturally I was worried the whole time, but it worked out.

The Berlin-Schönefeld Airport is way out from the city center, and extremely small.  When we got off the train at the station, I thought we had mistakenly gone somewhere else.  It was a long walk to the airport, made even longer by the weight of my backpack, but the very clever and adorable Easy Jet ads along the way made it somewhat entertaining.  Once we got into the airport, we were surprised to find that we had to go to through security before we could even get to the check-in desk.  They had some handy system of tagging bags that had to be checked verses ones that didn’t.  Then we sat on the floor for about an hour until the RyanAir desk finally opened, since this airport is too small to have seating for such a thing.  We decided to pay the 40 euros to check our two walking sticks we acquired in the Czech Republic, checked ourselves in, and walked around the gift shop looking for some delicious German chocolate to bring to Jenna.

Almost an hour of more waiting and we were heading to our gate, only to find that there was a passport check as you leave the airport.  Uh oh… we heard bad things about Germans and their enforcing of Schengen rules, and thought we were in the clear one we got past the mandatory RyanAir passport check.  So as we walk up to the passport desk, two months over our visas, the gentleman behind the counter starts flipping through the pages in Jon’s passport.  We both got the heart-beat-in-your-throat sort of feeling, and could only hope for the best.  He waved Jon through, free of the “don’t return” stamp, and it was my turn.  He didn’t spend as much time with my passport, probably because it was obvious that we were together.  Whew.

The flight itself wasn’t awful.  2 hours long, not enough leg room, flight attendants constantly trying to sell you stuff, but we managed to squeeze in a nap.  Once we landed, got our Ireland stamp in our passport, we were just fine; out of Schengen and totally legal again.  It felt nice.

Since it was pretty cheap, we opted to just take a taxi to Jenna’s apartments.  The driver was a gentleman, really helpful, and nice to talk to.  When he dropped us off, it was only about a minute before I saw Jenna walking down the street, and then I felt great.  I couldn’t feel how heavy my backpack was, how bad my feet hurt, or how cold my arms were.  We went to her apartment for a while, talked, relaxed, and then set out to find a nice place for dinner.  We found a cozy bar/restaurant in the Temple Bar district, enjoyed some bangers and mash, fish and chips and a few pints.

Since quarters were cramped, we had to sleep on the floor in her apartment, but we stole the couch cushions from the living room and slept on those.  The next couple days were filled with rather touristy things: a duck bus tour of the city, completely with Viking hats and screaming and people on the streets, more fish and chips, eating lunch in the lawn of Christ Church Cathedral, seeing St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Guinness Brewery, Carrol’s Irish Store, the Dublin bus system, lots of walking, and rain.  Good thing we read all the guide books and know that going out in Ireland without an umbrella is like asking to get pushed into a swimming pool fully clothed.

It was a very nice weekend with Jenna that I absolutely needed.  I needed to sit and talk with someone in person from home, enjoy all the excitement of the city with someone other than Jon (not that he’s not wonderful, but since she had been there a few days, she sort of knew her way around), and talk about everything that’s going on at home.

Getting to our host in Ireland was fairly easy.  Two buses, and we were met by a very enthusiastic mother of three to bring us back to her home.  The place here is absolutely wonderful, by far my favorite place so far.  They have so much to do here, so many birds (ducks, geese, and hens; baby chicks and ducklings too!), and such a successful vegetable garden.  They live in an old stone house that they’ve fixed up themselves, at the bottom of a hillish mountain thing, with the Motty Stone at the top.  I’m not sure what it is exactly, other than a really big stone that you can climb up on for views of the surrounding mountains and the Irish Sea.  We’re staying in a rather well kept trailer just at the bottom of the hill, which is nice when you’re staying with a family of five; you have your own quiet space where you can be out of the way.  I love it here.

I’ll fill you in on all the unique experiences I’ve had since arriving to “The Barnyard” (a nickname they’ve given their home) at a later time, I feel this post is long enough.  Until next time… Bíodh lá iontach!

Krásně různých Praha

Alright, wonderful, beautiful, incredibly different Prague; let’s go! (two weeks late)

Our time at the farm in the Czech Republic passed fairly quickly, and on the day we left we were off to Prague to spend the day there sightseeing, an evening in the same hotel Jon stayed in during his first visit last year, a wonderful breakfast, and free wireless Internet!  YAY!  The day was very enjoyable, despite the torrential downpour and hail storm shortly after we finished eating lunch.  I always have the best luck with weather.  We did manage to stay mostly dry, and got to see all of the major hotspots; the Astronomical Clock, St. Charles Bridge, St. Vitus Cathedral, various things surrounding Prague Castle.  We did however miss out on Prague Castle.  By the time we got there, realized you needed to buy a ticket, bought a ticket, and went through a few of the other things it included, the exhibits were closing for the day and we didn’t have time to see the castle.  We were planning on going the following morning before taking our train out to Berlin, but we were pretty tuckered out from the night before and didn’t do much else except enjoy our breakfast.

Alright, so the reason we missed out on the castle our second morning is because we attempted a pub tour the evening before.  What I mean by “attempted” is that we paid the admission, spent the first two hours of it in a rather small, uninspired backpackers bar in the bottom of what used to be a church drinking rather terrible (but unlimited) alcohol only to find that it was raining cats and dogs when we went to leave for the second pub.  Probably three-quarters of the way to pub two we decided we were much too cold, much too wet, and much too sore-footed to continue, so we walked back to the hotel, crawled into bed, and passed out.  Even if we had continued on with the rest of the tour, I have a feeling it was geared more towards backpackers looking to get drunk, rather than backpackers looking for a little dose of really neat history.  Oh well.  We did enjoy some nice conversation though, since the tour was also geared towards English speakers.

Given how difficult it is to get pictures up with limited Internet and time, I’m going to go ahead and let you readers know that I’ll be doing a huge picture post (or maybe several posts) at the end of this trip when I get home.  Since I now have a paper weight instead of a camera (don’t know how I managed to lose my charger), a lot of these pictures will be from Jon’s camera, either taken by myself or Jon.  So until I’m back stateside, you’ll just have reading to do.  Apologies in advance, but it’ll be worth the wait.

Neexistuje nic, jako je vaření klobásy na táborák.

Alright, it’s getting a little annoying starting every post with “sorry for the long absence”, but I’ve been learning on this trip that expecting every farm to have a large enough Internet data plan to host all of the blogging, Facebook and emailing we do is asking a lot.  But most of all I would like to apologize for promising you a second post the evening I was in Prague and not delivering.  The night was very interesting, to say the least, but I’ll fill you in on that when I get to it.

So I left off with us arriving in the Czech Republic.  We were picked up at the train station and brought back to the farm to find the people there very warm and welcoming.  The family who lived there was one Englishman, his Czech wife, and there two girls, 8 and 3.  There was another HelpX couple there was well from France, so we got to practice a little bit of all that French we learned!  We ended up being the resident translators for some things, which was a bit fun.

The day we arrived also happened to be Jon’s 23^rd birthday, and though he didn’t get to enjoy a draft in a pub in Prague like he had hoped, they did have a few beers that night, as well as a cake!  Coincidentally, they had been shooting for a magazine feature for their English Chocolate Cake recipe, so she had to bake two of them that day.  What luck!  We sang “Happy Birthday” and devoured the cake, or at least a good bit of it.  Delicious.

We spent two week on their farm, and since I would drowned you in all the little details, I’ll sum up what they had on their property, the bulk of our work, as well as the highlights of our experiences with the family.

The home they lived in was over 400 years old, and for about 2/3rds of it, unlivable.  They had just received an industrial sized band saw and planer thickness-er to us to make the entire upstairs of the home (currently all rafters) a livable space.  They have a lot of work ahead of them, but they plan to have it livable (not finished though) by Christmas.  Unfortunately, they spent the whole two weeks we were there waiting for the dust extraction system to make the job possible, so we weren’t able to help him put any of the large timbers through the saws to help him out.  Hopefully another HelpX-er or WOOFer will be joining them soon so he can finally get started!

This was definitely our first animal farm.  When we got there they had 5 goats (one of them a baby that spent its time in the back garden with us; I was quite fond of him), 4 mini-pigs, 4 mini-piglets, 4 rabbits, 3 chickens, 5(?) geese, 2 goslings, a very lovably Rottweiler named Sally and a cat whose name I never caught.  When we left, they had sold two of the goats, one of the piglets had died, someone they sold a rabbit to brought one back, and they acquired ten young chickens.  They required quite a bit of work, buy the twice daily goat milking blessed us with homemade goat cheese.  Yum!

For the majority of our stay we were adding on to an existing fence in the back garden.  They had just received 10 new chickens, and had to build up the fence high enough so that the chickens couldn’t get out, and the fox couldn’t get in.  It was a bit more difficult that it should have been because the existing fence wasn’t made very well.  The posts were random distances apart, which made finding wood long enough and cutting things to size a little time consuming.  We did however finish it on our second to last work day.

Almost every day (that it didn’t rain) we helped to water there rather beautiful and successful veggie garden.  I had my first radish (yum), and one evening we even had enough things harvested from the garden to make a salad from it (aside from the dressing).  Watering took a while, but fortunately for them they have a little spring that feeds a creek right by the garden, so you can fill up water in buckets right there.  The water also happened to have little tiny flecks of what looked like gold and silver.  We’re almost certain that’s what they were, but the amounts were so small that it would cost considerably more to get it out than you would make back with it.  On one of our work days we put in post for an electric fence on the property boundary, again for the foxes, wild boar and deer.  That job was particularly frustrating because the ground had a lot of clay in it, and there were a lot of very vicious biting flies.

As for our time off and the time spent with the family, it was very enjoyable.  The food was wonderful (though they eat a lot of fried food in this area of Europe, so I can’t say it was all as healthy as our salads), the conversation was great, and the atmosphere was very friendly.  I did however have to adjust to using an outdoor toilet for the first time, which was different to say the least.  Jon and I (Jon more than me) came to understand how awful stingy nettle is, and how it grows pretty much exactly where you don’t want it to.  We went on walks into the forests around their home and enjoyed being surrounded by real trees.  We learned a new word for rain boots, wellies, a new French card game that we plan on trying to find or create, and then turn it into a drinking game (it would be so much fun), we cooked sausages over the fire and had traditional Czech foods like langoše and enjoyed homemade breads and cake daily.  It was truly wonderful.

I’ll save our time spent in Prague for my next post, just to keep things from getting too long!

Notre famille est de retour

Well, our family got back a little over an hour ago, and I’m already tired of French Dora’s voice.  You really appreciate the silence when its gone.

It was yet another gloomy day in Nice, despite weather predictions all week claiming the sun would come up.  To make matters worse, before deciding not to go to the Bataille des Fleurs on Wednesday because of the relentless wind, we checked to make sure the weather for Saturday was supposed to be good.  It promised bright sun, with a 10% chance of rain.  Well, now its promising rain.  I guess we’ll be going to the parade in the rain, because its our last chance.

Class today wasn’t bad though.  I received a zillion compliments saying I looked nice today, even though I’ve worn that outfit at least five times since we got here.  Only difference was I actually got up in time to kind of fix my hair, play around with some make up, and put my contacts on.  I think its the contacts that did it.  I usually hide my make up behind my big nerdy glasses, but the room is small enough that I can read the board with my contacts, so I thought I’d give it a try.  More importantly, I was still expecting the sun to come up, and wanted to wear my sunglasses.  C’est la vie.

This week has proven best to serve as a catch up week.  On anything and everything.  Talking to friends, online course work, and several hours spent in my Kindle, getting to know Julia Child more and more each day.  If only I could do that on the beach!

Où est le soleil?

Alright Nice, seriously.  I signed up for three months on the Mediterranean!  WHERE IS THIS SUN!?

Okay, had to vent just a little.  But in all honesty, I’m a little bummed that its been so gloomy here.  In Nice, there really isn’t much to do except eat and shop when its grey like this, and the ladder I should do without, because Nice does have wonderful shopping, and I have very little self control when it comes to shoes and handbags.  I mean, I’ve been giving boots like these the same amount of wishful glances as the tartes au citron in the bakery windows!  Needless to say, I should avoid mindlessly walking around the mall.

I will say though, we still haven’t visited any of the museums.  I suppose now would be the best time to do so.  They’re free, but they’re also small, so it would really only buy us another maybe, 3 or 4 afternoons of entertainment before we’re back to square one.

On a brighter note, Jon and I are in the process of planning a trip this weekend to Torino, Italy.  Its only about, 6 hours away by train, so we would get there around 7pm, stay up all night walking around and exploring, check into a hotel that morning so we can shower and take a nap, go out and enjoy Torino during the day and into the evening, and get some sleep in our hotel Saturday night so we don’t miss our early Sunday morning train.  Sounds like I should have a caffeine section in my budget for the weekend, thats for sure.  But we want to get the most out of Torino without paying for two nights in a hotel.  We’ll see how it goes as we get closer in our planning.

So, for those reading in other parts of the world, I hope you’re weather is beautiful.  All my Florida friends have been bragging about tanning at the pool or the beach; you bet the moment the sun comes back out I’m going straight to the beach after class, Kindle in hand, ready to soak up that beautiful sun.  Or at least try- those who know me know that I’m very fair skinned, burn easily, and freckle.  Which means I should probably figure out what sunscreen is in French.

Bonne journée!

Oh! Also, if you’ll notice, at the bottom of my posts I’ve added buttons so you can easily share them with your friends and family on whatever social networking sites you frequent!  So feel free to share!

Nice commence à se sentir comme Londres

Today I learned an important traveling tip: When spending an extended amount of time in one place, its okay to have flexible plans.

Today, Jon and I were supposed to venture to the small medieval town of Saint Paul de Vence with one of our classmates, Fabiola, and her boyfriend Niko.  I saw some of her pictures on Facebook from the place, said it looked gorgeous, and she insisted she take us there to see it.  Sounds great?

Well its cold and rainy.  We had two days full of beautiful sunshine after nearly a week of rain, and today it came back again.  I’m starting to feel more like I’m in London rather than on the Mediterranean.

Had this been a week long trip, and we saved Saint Paul de Vence for our last day, sure, we would have probably still bundled up and gone to see the town, umbrellas in tow.  Our memories would probably be the only pictures we’d have, and nothing would appear as beautifully vibrant as expected.  But we’re staying for 3 months, there is always next weekend.

This week ahead does look promising though, even if it rains.  Our host family is leaving town, so Jon and I will have the apartment to ourselves.  Our family has been wonderful, but sleeping in on the weekend is a little difficult with a three year old outside our bedroom.  Also, this past Friday, one of our classmates, Khalid, had Jon, Fabiola and I over for lunch, and we had such a great time that we decided we should each host at least once.  It would be very difficult to do this with our family here, so this week is our week!  We just have to figure out what to make.  Fabiola also informed us that the museums are free, and we plan on visiting them together this week!  So even if it does rain, so long as I don’t get sick [*knock on wood*] it will be a great week.

J’ai peut-être allergique aux crevettes

So, I’m sorry for my lack of posting the past couple days.  Its still raining and miserably cold, so Jon and I really haven’t been doing much of anything other than catching up on various homework tasks and rest.  Which is good since I feel the tickle of another cold in my nose, which is frustrating.

Actually, the majority of this week has been rather frustrating.  Earlier this week, I finally had to tell my “host mom” that I didn’t like something that she made.  I was totally bummed, because I was hoping to avoid the conversation all together.  I’ve been able to stomach through eating my carrots, but we weren’t having carrots that night, we were having sausage and beans.  Beans are probably one of my least favorite side dishes under the sun.  And sausage, every kind is different for me.  So after she rushes back into the kitchen to whip me up some mashed potatoes (with my apologizing like, every 5 seconds as usual), Jon and I sat down and made a “Je n’aime pas” (I don’t like) and a “J’aime” (I like) list.  The I like list was just very generalized, since Jon and I like a lot more than we don’t like, but the don’t like list was rather short and specific.  For me: ham, beans, peas, bell peppers, mayonnaise, sausage, bleu cheese.  For Jon: olives, pickles, bleu cheese and ham.  Shrimp, and all other crustaceans of the sort should have been on our don’t like list, but alas, its hard to remember all the food you don’t like.

So that brings us to last night.  Shrimp alfredo.  Now, when I say I don’t like shrimp, its mostly a texture thing, but I don’t care for the flavor or the smell your house gets when you cook them.  But since it wasn’t on our don’t like list, I decided to be polite and eat them anyway.  Four hours later I realized that was an awful idea.  I woke up a little before midnight feeling really nauseous, and voila.  I got to praise the Porcelain God until 1:something in the morning.  Fun.

Now, I know what you’re thinking.  Most shrimp, or shellfish, allergies usually result in the sort of symptoms that fall under anaphylactic shock; rash, hives, fever, dizziness, trouble swallowing or breathing, you know, those sorts of things.  But alas, my wonderful boyfriend did some online research and found out the GI responses are possible, just not as common.  The reason I decided it must be an intolerance of some sort was because I was the only one sick.  If the food was contaminated, or the shrimp were bad, all four of us would have been fighting over visitation rights to the Lord of the WC, but that wasn’t the case.  I ate the least amount of shrimp, and I was the only one sick.  Not to mention I felt pretty much 100% all day except for some mild sniffles, and it couldn’t have been something else I ate that day because I didn’t eat anything new, and everything I ate, Jon also ate.  So readers, do you think I’m too far off thinking this might be an allergic or intolerant response of some sort?  Either way, I guess I’ll finally get that scratch test I’ve been putting off forever; I have a few other possible allergies I’d like to confirm.

So there you have it.  A picture-less, rather miserable and frustrating recap of my week.  Good thing everything happened when the weather was miserable and best suited for curling up with a good book before drifting into an afternoon nap.  I’d feel bad if I kept Jon in with me while the sun was out.  Which it should come back tomorrow, thank goodness. :)