Banket

Here are some pictures of the Banket I had in Amsterdam.

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Amsterdam

The midnight train took us from Berlin to Amsterdam. The train was 2 hours late but we somehow arrived on time. Each small room has two rows of beds, three high. The beds are really more like shelves, but I was so tired I didn't have much problem sleeping. We arrived in Amsterdam early in the morning and took a cab to the apartment where we were staying.

Our place in Amsterdam is a very nice little spot in the Jordaan neighborhood with a balcony that looks out over a canal.



















We had a great walk around the Vondelpark where it started snowing perfectly formed snowflakes. It was so pretty! We spent a good bit of time trying to catch them on our mittens.




















Other highlights include a fantastic dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse, the van Gogh museum, and of course, the Oliebollen. I didn't realize I knew any Dutch at all until I saw this stand:









We also found Banket. This is something my mom always used to make, and explained it was a traditional Dutch holiday treat. They call it Kerstkransstaaf and cover it with fruitcake fruit. There was way more paste in the middle than mom's and not nearly as good. It's also a pricey thing at 5 Euro a stick.


We also did a canal cruise by night. The pictures didn't come out so well, other than my cute bottle of bubbly. I really liked the canals with their romantic little lighted bridges, cruising past gorgeous old homes.














The cruise took us right past the swanky Holland Casino, so we stopped in to check our luck. Eoghan won 50 euro on Roulette!

Brandenburg Gate

We stopped at Brandenburg Gate so see where the Berlin Wall was.

We're in a pretty good mood considering the anti-American protesters surrounded by police officers with machine guns in the background.

Knut and Other Berlin Animals

Stopped off in the Berlin Zoo to see Knut and some other zoo babies. Berlin seems to have some animal husbandry program, and they had lots of young guys. The baby lions were my favorite. We stayed until closing time at the zoo, which was also feeding time for the big cats. The noise in the background is an angry oselot waiting for dinner.



The Panda was getting so close! He was more into showing off than the Pandas in Washington DC. Those Pandas were hungover. I swear.











I was surprised how close the zoo allowed you to get to the animals.






Eoghan could have reached in and grabbed one of these Penguins. Nothing good would have come of it, but he could have.






Remember Knut? Cutest polar bear baby of all time.....
















Well, he's is all grown up now... but still pretty great. He spent most of the time we were there taking some kind of snow bath.




We finished the night off with some Glühwein (hot, sweet wine) at a Christmas market outside.

Berlin Day 1

Things started a little roughly here in Germany. Our Ryanair flight was rerouted from Berlin to Leipzig. After a few days of heavy snow and winter storms, the Berlin airport had run out of the deicing fluid necessary to clear the runways. Leipzig is about 118 miles from Berlin. The airline had no support for passangers once we landed, and simply told us "good luck". None of the other passengers seemed too angry or surprised by the whole situation. Generally while everyone was mildly inconvenienced, people seemed sure they would make it to their ultimate destination.

We found the train system that would take us into Berlin, which was confusing and difficult only because we don't speak any German. The names of cities and towns look like total gibberish most of the time. We should have studied a little bit more German before traveling. Having almost zero words or phrases makes even basic communication difficult. Once in Berlin we've found almost everywhere has someone that speaks English, but I still feel guilty for not making more of an effort to learn some German before I left.

Despite arriving several hours late, our AirBnB host was very accommodating and friendly. He's originally from Chicago, so that was interesting. The place is very nice and seems to be right in the thick of things. Here is the view:

A few blocks down we found dinner at Prater Garten. It's one of the oldest beer gardens, started in the mid 1800s. Of course, with all the snow we weren't interested in the garden aspect but we went inside and had some tasty beer and traditional German food (Königsberger Klopse (meatballs in caper sauce) and Roast Pork with Potato Dumplings and Coleslaw). A fellow dinner inside the restaurant was a tiny black poodle with a red plaid jacket.

Almost as surprising as a dogs in restaurants was that Berliners smoke in the bars. I've gotten so used to the prohibition on indoor smoking that I can't really decide which seems more taboo to my Chicago standards.

Broken Camera

My camera seems to have succumbed to injuries received this year at Lollapalooza. It makes updating difficult because a post is simply less interesting without them. Hopefully, I can snag some pics from Enda and Aoibheann. I guess I could also do something in Paint. That is the current status anyway.

Dublin-Limerick-Lahinch

These are the beautiful lights on Grafton street. We did some shopping in the very fine shops there, but not really much buying. There were lots of various street performers, including a fire thrower. A anti-fur protest was going on, making everyone uncomfortable.

We spent the night in Limerick with Éanna. From there, we traveled to Lahinch this evening for dinner tonight. Everyone is getting all geared up for a pig slaughter tomorrow. Details to follow.

Yesterday we had a great dinner at L'gueulton. We picked it out and when we got there we realized we might have chosen one of the most popular restaurants in Dublin. (Pic from their website. I didn't want to be that annoying touristy girl with her flash bulb) A sign taped to the door said "Full" which seemed strange because they don't take reservations. When we got the attention of the very busy host/waiter he told us people were waiting in line down the block and around the corner when they opened at 6. Maybe, just maybe if we came back 2.5-3 hours later we might be able to get a seat.


Well it smelled wonderful and people obviously liked it, so we decided to wait it out. In the meantime, we headed over to The Clarence for cocktails. It seemed like the whole city was out on the town for holiday parties. There were some extremely sparkly shoes out! The Clarence was full of people on their way to parties and grabbing a drink with the people they actually like before spending hours with co-workers.

When we headed back to the restaurant, they were able to seat us at a cute table under the chalkboard. I had the Baby Chicken and Eoghan had the Steak with a garlic butter sauce. It was amazing. Mine was actually a cute, little baby chicken. I took a picture, but you won't be able to taste the cuteness. We finished off with an equally amazing chocolate tart. So yummy.


After dinner we met up with Eoghan's friends. They were literally just around the corner. Eamon and Orla (Getting married on New Years Day) were in town picking up a wedding dress. It was great to see people we knew and we had a great time out with them.

Today we got a late start. We did manage to go to the Kilmainham Prison. It is probably most famous for holding participants of the 1916 Easter Rising.
Pretty interesting place.

Tomorrow: Heading across the country on the train.

Arrival

We got in early this morning around 8:30 am local time. It's pretty cold out, and we even saw a few snow flakes. The hotel was a little hidden but we found it, checked in early, and got some rest. Now we're heading out for dinner and pints!

4 Days in Paris

Well it is now March, but I'm finally getting around to posting about the Paris trip... I'm also going to try and attach a photo album.


When plans to go Dublin fell through, we did a check of what cheap flights might be available through Ryanair. It was extremely last minute and right in the middle of a busy travel season so we were pretty sure if we found anything at all it would be somewhere obscure. We had almost given up when I decided to go location by location (their web site is terrible, by the way) and found the perfect flight to Paris-Beauvais. The return flight was €5.00 for BOTH of us! I can't explain how Ryanair works like this, but it does as long as you don't bring more than carry-on luggage.

Day One
The next day we were off. First, we checked into our hotel. The hotel was right by the Sorbonne, and had the cutest window that opened out onto the street. It had the smallest elevator I've ever seen - the two of us barely fit inside. The rest of the evening we spent exploring the neighborhood.

We sat outside and had coffee and pastries, looked at the Christmas tree at Notre Dame, explored a cooking store with a dog in it, walked along the bridges over the Seine, and eventually found a resturant down one of the little side street.

Day Two
The next morning started out with a gastronomic crusade. We were going to find a restaurant with authentic crepes. Eoghan spent some summers in Brittany as a teenager, so his standards of authenticity are slightly higher than average. It took awhile, but we found the place.

First, we got to experience the famously sassy Parisian waitstaff. But, the subtle rudeness of our waitress was just funny. I ordered a cafe. It wasn't. It was a drink about half the size of an espresso, and twice as strong. Rich and delicious, but I'm pretty sure it could put a hole in my stomach lining. The crepes were absolutely fantastic. I wish I had gotten a picture of our chef, possibly owner of the restaurant. He looked like Asterix at age 70,with a pipe!

From there we moseyed on over to Bastille and the Effiel Tour. It was pretty foggy so the visibility at first wasn't ideal. However, we stayed long enough for the night lights to come on. The visibility opened up and the lights were beautiful. We spent a few hours there looking at the skyline, drinking mulled wine, and enjoying the ice sculptures and other exhibits on the middle platform.

On our way back to the hotel to change for a show, we grabbed some wine, cheese and pate for a little in-room picnic. We caught the late burlesque show at Crazy Horse. I got my own cute bottle of champagne! It was a normal bottle of champagne, but slightly smaller with it's own ice bucket.

Day 3
The next morning was beautiful and we walked through the Jardin du Luxembourg on our way to the subway. We then headed over to the Musee d'Orsay and spent a few hours walking around there. I got to see Degas's ballet dancers, Gates of Hell, an exhibit of Picasso's deconstruction of Manet's Le dejuner sur l'herbe, and some Van Goghs. Of course, Paris is supposed to be a romantic city but the couple sucking face in the museum cafeteria was taking it too far.

After the museum then we walked through the Jardin Carrousel and the Jardin des Tulleries, past the Place de la Concorde, and down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. Long walk, but we started out right as dusk was falling. The lights and the last minute shoppers made the Champs-Elysees an amazing sight. I got a little distracted by all the lights and almost walked out into one of those deadly traffic circles.

For dinner, we found a great place that wasn't too far from the home where Jim Morrison died. The french word for scallops? I don't know, but they were fantastic.

Just before we headed in we tried the bar close to the hotel. The beer was flat and they only had a squat toliet. I thought I was done with that in China. We gave up on the place, headed up the street a block, and fell into bed. Despite the last place, it was another good day.

Day 4
The last day was very foggy. It was Christmas eve, and we were a little worried we wouldn't get out of Beauvais. We had a quick breakfast, were searched like terrorists at the airport, and finally made it back to Eoghan's house in Ireland.

Where did we go?

Let me know by which picture you can tell where we went. There are 4 total.

1.























2.













3.



















4.

Of course, I'll put the rest of the pictures up soon!

Suprise Trip

Hey guys - we're headed off again.

We found a inexpensive flight somewhere on Ryan air. We're leaving this morning and coming back Christmas eve! I'm not gonna say where, but I'll post pictures and you guys can all try and guess!

We'll take the safest plane. ;)

So exciting!

Wind and Flowers

Two quick things here.

First, I got flowers at the airport! Eoghan made this arrangement himself. The colors are really beautiful together.


















Secondly, it's super windy. I found this one spot down on the walk at the beach where I could hardly stand up. I would estimate it was a constant 50-60 mile an hour wind. It wasn't raining, but I still felt that I was in a hurricane. I'm not holding my purse like that - it's flying!

Suitcases

Well, it's off for another adventure. Eoghan and I are headed to Ireland again for a few weeks.

With all this travel it was time to get some new suitcases. After a good bit of bargain shopping (I love TJ Max sometimes) I found these suitcases that are quite large, and distinctive enough (brown) without being too garish.

Henry is clearly suspicious of the new suitcases. I'm pretty sure he knows we're going to be leaving without him.

International pet travel is not impossible, but it is 1) not without danger to the pets because they will be traveling in cargo 2) as expensive as my ticket. Henry has a lady down the hall who has offered to look after him, and Lester may be stopping by for rubs as well.

Eoghan has already arrived in Ireland, and seems to be having a good time. Now I've just got two exams to finish before I can leave and join him.

Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City

Another cloudy, hazy hot day we went down to T. square and the Forbidden City.

The square is large, but there isn’t much there. Most of the tourists we saw were Chinese, many of them with their children. It’s not exactly Disney World, so I thought it was strange. I guess it’s more like bringing kids to something in DC.

We took this picture and it took FOREVER for everyone to get situated and give their cameras to one central photo taker…. We were taking so long that a group of Chinese tourists started crowding around us and taking pictures of us getting our picture taking. Pretty embarrassing.

The Forbidden City was much more exciting.

First of all, it’s huge – about 2,362,205 square feet. It has 980 buildings. Does this give you an idea of how large it is?

This river runs through it, and I believe Arthur told us the river here runs from the Summer Palace. But, maybe I made that up.

This picture was taken before a complete downpour begun, soaking us all. It was a really pretty scene, and I felt like I had seen pictures of it before. Now I have m y own picture of it!

The Imperial Gardens were very impressive. I was enjoying them so much I completely lost the group. I had to go back to find them, and as soon as I did it started raining and we left. If I hadn’t gotten lost, I wouldn’t have seen the gardens. The elephant is from the garden, and you can see one of the cypress trees behind him.

That’s all I’ve got time for right now… more to come. :)

Lama Temple and Temple of Confucius

Our second day in Beijing, we went to the Lama Temple. Lama with one "l".

Work on the temple began in 1694 during the Qing Dynasty (I'm trying to learn Chinese History, so bear with this re-cap. I couldn't remember it all so some of this is from wikipedia) as an official residence of the prince's eunuchs and concubines. Eventually the prince ended up living there until he took the throne in 1722. After that, half became a lamasery (a monestary for Tibetan monks) and half remained palace.

The Lama Temple has a large gate, followed by a tree lined path, then several Halls with different buddhas inside.



The gate is guarded by two lions, male and female for balance. The male has his paw on a ball, the female has her paw on a cub. I'm a big fan of the lions.

I'll have to do my best to describe because these are active religious grounds and pictures inside the temples was not allowed. The first golden buddha is a very large, fat, happy buddha in the center with the four Heavenly Kings along the sides. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Heavenly_Kings ) I thought the kings were pretty interesting. The each held a lot of meaning, in the colors of their faces, what they were holding, and their position in the temple. Wikipedia can tell you more if you're interested.

Most of the other halls had three fit-looking bronze buddhas in the center. They were the Buddhas of the Three Ages, the statue of the Gautama Buddha (Buddha of the Present) is in the center, with the Kasyapa Matanga (Buddha of the Past, right) and the Maitreya Buddha (Buddha of the Future, left). There were life size statues of men on the sides. I can't remember what they were for.

The Grande Finale though was the last buddha. He's in The Pavilion of Ten Thousand Happinesses. (I can't even imagine that much happinesses) This buddha is also on the skinnier side but he's over 85 feet tall! He's covered from a single piece of white sandalwood and was included in the Guiness Book of Records in 1993. This is not the largest buddah, of course, but it is one of the tallest.

As I mentioned before, this is an active religious site. There are prayer wheels. These large drums hold prayers. In Buddhism, it is believed motion brings prayers to heaven. That is why prayers are written on flags that wave in the wind or spinnable objects like this drum. Also, there were lots of people burning three sticks incense at a time. Three is an important number. (You can see the incense smoke in the picture)

From the Lama Temple we went to the Temple of Confucius. They had a very cute gift shop, but I wasn't sure what I wanted so no purchases were made. The trees were also beautiful. One cypress had an interesting story. I was really tired by this point, while I walked around a little I really enjoyed sitting and just enjoying the garden.

The next day we headed to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City so that evening we just went back and studied and went to bed. In fact, I've got to get to tomorrow's reading so I'll blog more about all that later.

Please write comments folks, otherwise I think no one cares.

Arriving in China

The Flight
The flight was just over 13 hours. Despite the fact that on the plane there were 160 loud and excited high school choir kids, along with their equally enthusiastic chaperons, it didn't really seem that long. This is probably because the wine was free and I took a sleeping pill. According to the little "where in the world is this plane" map they showed us in-flight, we didn't take the route I thought we would. We flew northwest out of the airport (but I could still see my apt. building on the way towards the lake!) and north along lake Michigan. Then I feel asleep. Then we were flying over ICE BURGS!
On the way in from the airport you can really see the work that's gone into the Olympic preparation. There is beautiful new landscaping everywhere and the airport is immaculate. It's a little like a brand new, high end shopping mall. People have been so friendly. So far, I've only picked up "hello" in Chinese. I'm getting really good at gestures though.

The weather is really hot and humid. There is a constant haze. They've told us China is practicing to control the weather at the Olympics, so they are "seeding" the clouds with partials. Moisture collects on these particles and is then heavy enough to fall as rain. They are hoping to seed the clouds right before the ceremonies to have clear skies. Right now though it just seems to worsen the issues of smog and haze.

We had a group dinner when we all got in. It was the most Chinese Restaurant looking restaurant I've ever seen. Does that make sense? :) They ordered for us so I really have no idea what I've eaten so far.










This morning we took a tour of campus. This is the building where the library is and where I"ll have class. (I have pink hiking pants on because we're going to the temple, and they were the only pants I brought that weren't jeans.) The artifacts in the library are all real, and very old. These cute little statues are about 2000 years old! There is only internet in the library and in the coffee shop across the street. The coffee shop is very cute. It's boutique-y. The menu has "Western" things on it with English words. It's a nice alternative when I've had all the mystery food I can handle. :)

We toured some temples today too, but I'll have to look through my materials to figure out what we saw and then I can put those pictures up.

Dublin

We took a train across the country to Dublin. It was a really nice way to travel for several hours. We could just nap and watch the countryside, cows, and sheep go by.

When we pulled into the station the first thing we saw was the St. James brewery where they produce Guinness. There is a tour of the old brewery facility. It's great! They show you pretty much how they make Guinness from the ingredients, to the processing, brewing, packaging, and marketing. There is no guide, it's all media as you go up and up into the building. At the very end there is a bar where they pour a pint of "perfect" Guinness. Eoghan thinks it should have had more love in the pour, but it was pretty tasty and you can see his glass is empty. The view was amazing. The bar was set up with the Guinness in the center, and a 360 degree view of the Dublin. It was a beautiful circular room entirely walled by windows.



We left, found the U.S. embassy where Eoghan would have to go renew his Visa early the next morning (it's a really tacky building that looks like a beach-side motel 8, circa 1972), dropped our stuff at the B&B, and found Lizzie. The B&B had a nice view of the colored doors we saw all over the city, as well as the Palm Trees. Did you know Ireland was a tropical island?

Lizzie was a lot of fun! She showed us some nice pubs in the area, and she mostly told stories and her and Eoghan caught up.

The next morning, after a meat-fast downstairs, Eoghan went to the embassy to do his thing and I walked off to Grafton St. I past St. Stephen's Green on my way. We had a chance to see the lights on Grafton the previous night, and they were beautiful! Thousands of tiny white and blue lights spell out holiday wishes in Irish, with a strob-ish light mixed in ever so often. Grafton St. has great shopping and is completely pedestrian.








After some shopping we moved on to see Trinity College, founded in 1592. Eoghan studied there after high school, and it's a beautiful campus.






After Trinity, we did some more exploring and got some lunch before heading back to the west side of the country. Some fish and chips, then back to the train!