Italia Day 7-9: Firenze

Now we are train experts and got on the right train the first time to Florence. It was great chatting with a nice couple from Dubai on the way down, and of course there was a long pause when we said we were Americans. They were friendly with us once they knew we were not your typical run of the mill Americans. Of course we did not rise to the debate when they said that democracy is wrong and that a monarchy is a way to go.

Florence is a city where I can show off my geeky architectural history side of myself since Florence was the birthplace and home to many of the Renaissance greats! Michaelagelo, Raphael, da Vinci, Botticelli and many others! If we thought is was rainy before this is really where is started to lash from the heavens. Big fat, lets get you soaked to the bone in 5 minutes type rain. Amy was such a dote and helped me reserve all of the hotels a head of time right next to all the train stations. My new cork shoes started falling apart since they got so drenched. I loved the thunder and lightening though! That way, no worries, we pull in and go straight to our hotel. The food is good since we both love Italian food, I am just glad we walked so much since we were eating and drinking so much. This was the expensive part of the trip. Every museum was €7 per person and the catch was, they would building the museum around one significant piece of artwork. Michaelangelo's David had to be the first on the list. All I have to say is Michaelanglo was the MAN back in his day, and would still be pretty amazing even today. An architect, engineer, painter, poet and a sculptor. David was worth the wait to see. That statue is just amazing! After viewing the original, we had to go see where it originally stood in the Palazzo Vecchio in front of the Medici palace. And this is where the rain kicks in once again so we had a rest sitting among the many covered statues at the Palazzo just to people watch. There was a security man who walked around telling people not to eat or drink around the statues or bring their dogs through. We made up, or shall I say, I made up funny stories about what the security man was saying to everyone just to entertain us. I like stories, especially bed time ones.

The next day there was, surprise, More Rain! To keep as dry as we could we headed to the Santa Croce basilica that contains the monumental tombs of Galileo, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Dante and Donatello. After seeing Donatello's tomb, we had to go see his David. After traveling across town we got to yet another museum that contained a few Michelagelo pieces, but most importantly Dontello's David. I studied the David's quite a bit in school and wrote many papers, so I was quite excited to see them both in person and yet was even more let down to see David under reconstruction. Such is my luck. To make up for that loss we went into the Uffizi Gallery that contains many of the great Renaisance works and so much more. The main important piece that I had to see was the Birth of Venus by Botticelli. I just worked the 4,000 piece puzzle of this over Christmas. This is my favourite painting of all time. Luckily I could spend as much time as I wanted in front of it and it was viewable! Lippi, Titian, Caravaggio, Dürer, da Vinci, and Raphael were abound here. It was amazing how much history flooded back into the front of my brain as I shared with Ben and started noticing other tourist following me around as I could tell the story of the greatest painters and sculptors in history.

After seeing some of Mike's pictures when he did his backpacking after graduating we to see the crown jewel of architecture in Florence is The Duomo by Filippo Brunelleschi the Santa Maria del Fiore. After countless steps we got to the top to have the panoramic view of the city. Florence is a beautiful city and was well worth the climb and the slight fear of heights when ascending that far up. The best thing about this city besides all of the Renaissance stuff is the wine, and the dinners were made all the much better with it! Got to hand it to the Italians, between the architectgure, the wine and the food, it is a great place to be.

Italia Day 5-6: Middle Of Nowhere and Southern Tyrol

We had a lovely breakfast and cappuccino before heading out just as the rain really started to come down. As we boarded the train for Bressanone to go visit my friend Kathrin, we had a large learning curve trying to learn Italian trains. We deciphered most of the schedules and got on the right train to Verona, but we knew we only had 7 minutes to find our next train at the stop. In true Italian style, the train was late and we had one minute to find our train. We checked one of the boards, ran to Bin 7 and got on the train just as it was leaving. All was good. Little did we know, three hours later when they checked our tickets, we were three hours in the wrong direction. WE got off the train in the middle of nowhere and tried to call Kathrin, when I realised that I left off one of her digits of her mobile number. After waiting an hour, and knowing that the train was to go to Bin 5 we were ready. Many trains pulled in and out and some would pull in from one direction and then go back the way it came. At 5:30 when our train was to arrive, it did come on time, but from the wrong direction. We thought nothing of it, crossed the tracks, and boarded the train. We made it, or again, as we thought. Just as the doors closed, we saw the train pull in heading back to Verona. Once again, we were on the wrong train, again heading further South. Kathrin finally got a hold of us when we hit a town nearly to Florence by this time and booked a hotel. Another few hours we boarded the train directly to the largest town in Southern Tyrol Bolzano and got there by midnight. One full day spent going nowhere and missing out on catching up with an old friend.

We had a great nights rest and the next day we pottered around Bolzono waiting for Kathrin to get off work. In SOuthern Tyrol, it was once a part of Austria, so they are bilingual in German and Italian which is why Kathrin lives there. She did the foriegn exchange program from Stutgard Germany over to U of O which is how I know her. We had not seen each other in nearly 5 years since when I went to Germany, she happened to be in the US at the same time! I digress..... back to the story. Ben and I took our time seeing the city, trying to remember my super rusty German, but I did manage to say 'I have a reservation' in german when I went to the hotel and had the most lovely breakfast the next day in the hotel. We went to all of the museums the city had to offer. Most of the exhibits were in german so we went through them pretty quickly. The best was the archelogical one where we got to see the Iceman, Ötzi found up in the mountains. I had always wanted to see him. It was in english too and it was very interesting seeing stuff from thousands of years ago. We took a long walk up to see Roncolo Castle and toured that. It was lashing rain, but was great seeing all of the vinyards leading out to the castle and it was quite warm out. After sitting on a bus the whole day before, it was good to stretch our legs. We got back into town just as Kathrin got off of work and we headed to her house where we would be staying. We met up with her boyfriend Mouriz. Their accents speaking english are so differnet, since he learned it while living in London and she while living in Santa Barbara they even have a hard time understainding eachother. The german there was so hard for me to understand. I can understand Kathrin a little bit, but the others was just so musical and bouncy. We had a graet dinner with the funniest waiter. We drank and ate way into the night. The next morning we met up with Kathrin and took the train in with her. We had a bit of breky and some coffee before we parted ways. I was so happy to see her, and hope it will not be another 5 years before we see each other again!

Italia Day 1-4: Venezia

Hot on the heals of Amy leaving, we packed our bags to head to Italy for our 2 year anniversary. Our first stop was Venice. I have always wanted to go there since watching it in old films as a child. We left sunshine in Dublin and were at first excited to have sunshine in Venice, but it soon turned into the thunder and lighting with big fat drops of rain. The canals were not too full, and were thankfully not stinky. We stayed right on the canal at one end of town with San Marco Piazza at the other. That was to be our first stop. We followed the signs, and the mass of crowds to the piazza. It is everything I thought it would be. I do hate pigeons though, little flying rats, so the last thing I was going to do was encourage them to come land on me and feed them. I left that to the unsuspecting tourists and small children! We walked the whole piazza listening to the different bands playing in the cafes, walked around Saint Mark's Basillica which of course was under renovation and went through the Doge's Palace.

Over the next few days we saw the Ca' d'Oro right on the Grand Canal and the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo which were architectural must sees. We walked all over trying to tinf the Bovolo since you had to go down so many little alleys. It was hard to get lost in Venice, but very very difficult to find something you are looking for. Literally all signs point you to San Marco or the Piazza Roma. We walked over the three main bridges including the Rialto, and over countless other little bridges. Every street had interest in it. We also took the very touristy gondola ride, since that is a must. How could we go away from Venice and not saw we took one. We took one of the large water taxi's out to the cemetray island. It was packed full of bodies. It was also strange to see pictures of the deceased on almost every tombstone. Interesting for sure. The family crypts were interesting to see too put into the walls. Our last full day we went to see the Jewish Ghetto and just enjoyed the cafes along the canal just turning up any which way street we could find. We spent everyday in Venice just getting lost, and seeing every nook and cranny of it. Knowing that the city is literally crumbling before your eyes, and with the water rising, by the time I ever make it back to Venice, it will be a completely different city. I walked away knowing that I had seen it and lived it.

Strange Anomaly #20

Irish people are very nice, very polite and smile quite a bit. I mean, it is strange in a big city to have nice people. I am excited to move into Temple Bar, but at the same time I will miss my walk to work from Ranelagh into Milltown. One of the things that help make my day is the morning garbage collector who cleans out the pedestiran bins along the footpath and clears out the sewer grates.

Garbage Man: 'Mornin', Love.'
Me: 'Good Morning'
Garbage Man: 'Grand morning, tisn't it.'
Me: 'It is!' (and it is usually sunny in the morning and becomes crap in the afternoon)
Garbage Man: 'Have a good day, Love.'
Me: 'Cheers, you too!'

Just a nice way to start out your day!

Skyping Jacquie; come in, Jacquie....

Yes you can cram 8 people into our little tiny apartment! I had the girls over to chat with Jacquie on skype. She is recently been diagnosed as pregnant and we wanted to see the baby bump and since I love cooking it was an excuse to have everyone over. Denise, Ruth, Catherine, Claire, Karen, Katrin, Tullia and myself all crowded around the TV to chat with her and Phillip. Of course this is where technology fails us. We could chat with her just fine, but to see her with the video made both computers crash. Still pretty cool that we could sit in Ireland and chat with somone in South Africa for free and it was clear as if she were in the room with us. She ended up just emailing us some photos of her belly and rang us on my mobile, but we will have to try again once the squirmy one is born. It was just great to hear her voice again for all of us!

We behaved for the most part since it was a school night. But Catherine just had to make here yummy Brazilian Caipirinha drink since her boyfriend is brazillian, to go along with the all the food. The drink is prepared with cachaça:
Caipirinha
1 lime
2 ounces of cachaça
Sugar to taste
Ice cubes

Wash the lime and roll it on the board to loosen the juices. Cut the lime into pieces and place them in a glass. Sprinkle with the sugar and crush the pieces (pulp side up) with a pestle. Just enough to release the juice, otherwise it'll get bitter. Add the cachaça and stir to mix. Add the ice and stir again. It is delicious and potent!

If you can't find cachaça, use a good vodka. The drink will then be called caipiroshka. No vodka? Use white rum and you will have a caipiríssima. Worth a go for sure!

Au Revoir Cork

One of the French guys, Gilles, from the office has decided to leave and travel for a while. Although I do not know Gilles well, I used his Leaving Do as an excuse to head down to Cork for the weekend. It started out a good morning, Tullia, Sean, Karen, myself and Tullia's friend Sinead were all packed and ready to head to the train station after work, but the afternoon turned sour when they announced more redundancies made here. We boarded the train sour and glum, but we made the best of the night. We headed to our hotel at the top of the hill, now I never knew there were hills in Ireland, but they are all over Cork! We headed into town to their local pub where I think every person in town was crammed into, and yet we crammed ourselves in as well. Hot whiskies were the drink of choice for the night as we stood outside on the street and drank in the open air. As the pub began to close we all headed to Gilles for more drinks, rice crispy buns, and general banter. We had balloon fights and drawing between the fishnet tights and some super cheesy eurotrash dancing taught to us by none other then the talented Tutti!

The next morning we did the touristy bits with Karen at the helm since she has been to Cork several times as Kerry is the county just over from it. We did the brunch with Gilles and the gang before the bus tour. It was a double decker open bus with the branches hitting us as we climbed up the hills. A drink was much needed to clean out the taste of bugs. We realised in the pub that Sean had a green shirt, I had a white shirt and Gilles had an orange shirt making up the Tri-colour flag. Picture taking moment and of course Gorgeous had to be in it as well! We got a bit of grub before going out on the lash but Karen and I petered out early as we were fighting off colds.

After a bit of shopping the next morning we headed back on the train. Sunshine followed us back to Dublin which was great!

West of Ireland with Amy

Day 1 of into the West:
We flew back into Dublin and picked up a car. It was time for Amy to try out driving on the left side. After an interesting start in the carpark, we were on the road to the West. It took no time at all for her to have the knack of driving and a few hours later (well maybe 4 hours) we were rolling through Cork and onto Blarney Castle. We were on a tight schedule since we needed to reach Kenmare by nightfall. We piled out of the car and walked straight to Blarney Castle, up the steps, stopping in a few rooms along the way, and up to the tippy top to kiss the Blarney Stone. We paid a man a few quid before having him help hold us backward to kiss the stone. He had windex there to clean it! I kissed it first even though the last thing I need is the gift of the gab. I convinced Amy to do it to, since she was there, she might as well! We grabbed some snacks and dinnery food to go on our way to Kenmare. We checked into our lovely little B&B and walked into the town. Such a quaint town, and dwith a Druid Circle just down the laneway from the town centre. We had our cheese sandwiches while sitting in the Druid Circle and watched the sun set. We moised our way back into town to have a Guinness to top off the night, while drawing smiley faces in the head (sign of a well poured Guinness). It was an early night, since we had to be up with the sun.

Day2:
We did the first half of the Ring of Kerry, driving down random roads deliberately getting lost, just to see where the road would take us. Kerry is so beautiful and it is a beautiful drive. We had to be at Portmagee by 10:00 to make our little 12 man boat out to Skellig Michael. We arrived early so we went into the pub and had a bit of coffee and some yummy waffles. The first waffles I have found in Ireland. I love waffles! While waiting for the boat to get ready we laughed at this little dog that was shivering in the wind and just crouched against the cold on the seawall. It was an overcast day when we headed out with 10 other people on our boat. I had no idea what we were in for, I just knew there were lots of steps on some island. After an hour boat ride we disembarked on a small little crag and walked up some nice flat concrete stairs, I thought no bother, I can do this. We walked about halfway up and then it changed to these uneven, partially broken stairs that were narrow and were right on the edge of the cliff that meandered up the mountain precariously. Now I am a little afraid of heights, but if I follow Amy's footsteps I can do it. We saw the puffins popping in and out of their little holes as we ascended and just near the tippy top, i was about to give out to yer man for stopping mid stair just to look at the view, I needed to keep moving or my legs were to stop. Climbing that was about as easy as nailing jelly to a tree, but we made it. Monks used to live up there and the tour guide still does. Just amazing that people used to cling to the side of a crag in the middle of the ocean and survive!

After a boat ride back to Portmagee we kept on going through the Ring of Kerry, looking for any signs of ancient archaeological ruins. We drove into Tralee to look for a place for the night. No one seemed very friendly. We asked where the bay was, and the little old man kept repeating that there was not water in the bay, but we just wanted to know the direction. We found a small B&B and an unfriendly lady was willing to rent us a place but she was not to happy about having us there and it sort of smelled of old Chinese food, we decided to move on. As we tried to leave Tralee we just kept ending up in the city centre over and over and over, it kept forcing us to drive in a big circle. We finally took a very wrong turn, which put us on a road to a small little village, Fenit. It is a one-pub town where the pub is also the town's B&B and restaurant. West End Bar was the perfect place for us to have a nice meal and have a few Guinness and sleep for the night. As the sun set we went for a nice walk along Tralee Bay. There were some perfect places for swimming to be had since the water was so blue and clear. We came back for a good nights rest since this was our one morning to sleep in.

Day 3:
We had a lovely full breakfast to start out the day that was to jammed packed full of touristy items. As we drove through Limerick, we came up with a Limerick on our least favourite place in Ireland:

There once was a man from Tralee,
who discovered it burned when he pee’d.
He said to his mate,
‘I should’ve known my fate,
when she’d given it up for free.

We reached Adare to stop for a bite to eat where they had just the cutest little town. Thatched cottages and all. Renowned as Ireland's prettiest village, Adare is designated as a Heritage Town by the Irish Government. We walked up and down the main thoroughfare enjoying the quaint little town, but then it was back int he care heading to Bunratty!

Bunratty Castle was built in 1425 and was restored in the 1960s furnished with mainly 15th and 16th century items. We first went through the folk park which recreated rural and urban life in 19th century Ireland. We ran around mad as a bag of fish to view all the different farmhouses of various economic backgrounds, a watermill, church and village street. At the peasant farmhouse we had good fun pretending to be the downtrodden worker looking sad and famished. We just had too much fun goofing around the two of us. We headed to the castle where we played High Queen in the throne room, went down into the 'dungeon' room and just pretended we were back in time. We had to head out for a bit to play with the cannons before going to our 5 course banquet! There were harp players, minstrels, singers all dressed up in period clothing. They even made a couple a queen and king for the night and during supper they even threw someone in the dungeon. Amy and I got to speak some Irish and much to the wandering singer's delight Amy and him had a bit of banter and was shocked that Americans knew Irish! WHEEE! We got to use what we had learned. Go raibh maith agaibh! (Thank you) We drank our mead and I picked up my pork leg and ate it like a true medieval person and even grrrrrrred a bit! Amy got a great photo to send to her boss, showing that we enjoyed our meal together thanks to him! Good boss to have. After dinner we went out the drawbridge and down to listen to a Scotsman playing the bagpipes, frightening a small child, I never laughed so hard! She was terrified but entranced all at the same time.

We had no idea where we wanted to stay that night, not in Enis since the water is bad, but needed to keep heading north. We followed signs to a B&B and thought we were lost, but saw a cute boy along the way so we figured it must be the right way and finally stopped for directions by a nice lady and said it was just over the ridge and to the left. We were in Newmarket-on-Fergus in the middle of nowhere and absolutely loved it. We pulled up to a large house with lots of farm animals and fell in love with the place. A nice American woman there gave us the tour before Noreen could come down out of the fields to let us know if there was room for us for the night. There was, much to our delight, and it was well under what we were willing to pay as well, added bonus. Noreen showed us the newly birthed calves and the new foal that was born that morning. All of the sheep were sheered that day as well and all the lambs were calling out to their moms since they did not recognise them. Too cute. We tucked in for an early evening after having some tea, homemade scones and brown bread, fresh butter and homemade jam. What more could you ask for.

Day 4:
I had one of the best breakfasts ever! Noreen is the best cook. During breakfast Amy got to talking French with some of the other guests. So within 5 days, Amy spoke, Egyptian, French, Irish and English. She started teaching me a few Yiddish words so it was a weekend of random languages! We left early enough to get to the Cliffs of Moher before everyone got there for the day. It was great to go back since the last time I was there in 2006 the visitor centre had yet to be completed. It looked good as we did the quick tour of it. Noreen had told us of the illegal walk that you climb the fences for to get better photographs of the cliffs so of course we had to do that. When have I ever followed the rules?! The sun was out and it was a good day to start heading towards The Burren. The Burren is an area that has loads of archaeological stuff. We first did the Poulnabrone Dolmen since up until then, the dolmens had eluded us on our adventures. It is one of the most photographed places in Ireland and it was crawling with tourists. We tried to get a photo making it look like I was surfing on it, but the angle just was not there and too many people, but we did get them to laugh at us having a good time. Further down the road was the Caherconnell Stone Fort. We watched the little video and did the quick walk around but it just was not as magnificent as it is seen in photos, we were expecting something much bigger. When we asked your wan in the gift store where some of the other ancient stuff was she said, Just look for the white mark (making a vertical hand movement like painting) and pull over and find it. We drove around the area for ages and just as we were to give out, there was the WHITE MARK! Not for what we were looking for, but we did find the Cahermore Ring Fort which we saw in the little video at the other place. It was awesome to pull over on a narrow Irish road, climb over some precarious rocks, up a winding little path, and find something cool! No more white marks were to be found since they sort of blend in with the white rocks and the copious amounts of bird excrement. We stopped in Ballyvaughan for tea since it is a picturesque little village with the most signage I have ever seen on a single wall! Just boggles the mind. As we passed through Galway City on our way back to Dublin, the rain started, it knew our trip was over. Perfect timing.

Early the next morning I took Amy back to the airport since we had to drop the car off and i had to navigate us through city centre. I saw her off on the plane and had a nice day to myself. After my grocery shopping I ran into one of the lads and had lunch with the Friday Lunch group at our regular lunch place Antiqua Venezia. They were going to head into Smith's Beer Garden after work to see off one of the lads heading back to Poland so I met them there for a few scoops before heading home to pack for ITALY since I could tell the night was to turn into a mental session! Stay tuned, more to come on Italy soon.......