An Australian, three Ameri-Australianos, and an American in Paris

Jeez-Louise, they speak different language here! Though we all have a little French (j'ai une crayon rouge), it's a tough adjustment. Philip has been hitting his stride (he has more than a little French having lived here for 3 years during his formative teen years), but the rest of us are still a little shy about communicating en francais. Our hotel overlooks the corner of Rue des Pyramides and Rue St. Honore with a back view of Eglise Saint Roch, a 17th century church (that has some later Napoleonic significance that would be clearer if I read French a bit better). We walk past restaurants with scrumdillyicious food and shops with divine clothes every 10 steps or so--and then there are the lovely juliet balconies on all the buildings. Ooo la la! Quelle cite! C'est formidable! For whatever reason (language barrier, I'm hoping), nobody from these parts really has much interest in getting to know us so far--the people we end up talking with are inevitably Australians and Americans (two Sydneysiders in the queue for the Eiffel Tower and a table full of Americans next to us at dinner tonight from, where else?--Brooklyn). Strolling through the city, though, I feel like I'm in a good caper movie with the buzzing of motor scooters, boats on the river and random cobbled side streets. As you can see from the photos here, the French like to do things on a grand scale--as Philip pointed out today there are massive monuments in this town. We have huge monuments in DC, of course, but who designed that town? A Frenchman! Our biggest monument in NYC? A gift from the French! Even Napoleon's tomb is gargantuan (unlike, apparently, the man himself). His bones must be rattling away in that thing. The queues are massive as well, and unlike in England, here there are no shorter lines just around the corner. Queuing is a rite of passage, a kind of hazing in Paris. We are eating ourselves silly but enjoying every bite (and drop of champagne!). And we are finally enjoying some summer-like weather. Break out le soleil-screen.

Paris, deuxieme jour

Better organised (more or less) today. After a leisurely start - the waiter in the cafe down the road knows our breakfast order already - we tooled off to the Eiffel tower with pre-booked tickets in hand. Skipping the long line, we all zipped up to the second level. Then Philip took the kids to the top for some spectacular views of the city. It really is quite a marvellous structure - all 3 children we interested in the elevators, where the counterweights were & how they worked. Geeks. Take after their father.

Fighting off the vendors, we ploughed through the Champ de Mars, shimmied over to Les Invalides (Isabella's request) to check out Napolean's bones (Isabella's phrase), then onto Rodin's museum (Clare's request, I think...)



The girls chose wisely. I think there's a toy store in Paris (no doubt of interest to Emmett) with a bar in it (no doubt of interest to Philip). Maybe tomorrow...

Gay Paris/Let Them Eat Birthday Cake

Very quick post so as not to fall too far behind. First day in Paris, after a blindingly quick trip across from London. Once again we marvel at the train system. This time our fellow travellers included what I think was the French female rugby team. They were a rough, boisterous crowd, up to all sorts of high jinks. But enough of that. Our hotel is just north of the Tuilleries garden, near the Louvre. Of course, it's all charming. On our first full day here we tried the Louvre (2 hour line), gave up on that, took a boat down the Seine to the Eiffel Tower (ditto), boat back up, checked out Notre Dame.



It being Sid's birthday (Happy Birthday!) we got all gussied up & ventured out to a fine dining establishment (Benoit, an Alain DuCasse establishment recommended by our friend Russ). The kids were troupers, the waiters bemused, Sid & Philip in gastronomical heaven. There we a few things on our dishes we were not sure about (is it a meat? What part of the animal did it come from? Was it an organ that had some practical use?) - but it was all so yummy & well presented. Great people watching - from the Aussies from Sydney behind us to the regal French dame with a sapphire the size of Emmett's finger next to us. Quite an evening. Off to bed, plenty to do tomorrow...

Greenwich and Grenadiers

With a beautiful blue sky yesterday, we opted to spend the afternoon in Greenwich (near where I lived with the family in 1973). Boy, did the memories come flooding back. George and I got hopelessly lost and separated from the rest of the family going through the Maritime Museum in '73. Remember that, George? We managed to keep all 3 kids in sight as they frolicked around the hill behind the Queen's House. Even when they each had one foot in the eastern hemisphere and the western hemisphere (Prime Meridien!), we didn't lose them.

Later we took in traditional fish and chips for our last evening in London. Since Kay has been so spot-on with the food recommendations, we went to her favorite pub, The Grenadier, a very difficult-to-find lovely old pub in a back mews sandwiched somewhere between Belgrave Square and Knightsbridge. We only found it with the help of some fellow revellers on their way to the same watering hole. Don't know that we could find it again. But it was well worth the hunt--a lovely fire (yes, it was THAT cold) and a great atmosphere. We will miss London and the UK very much.

The Merry Wife of Brooklyn

That's me, the merry wife! Philip and I (here pictured in Greenwich by the observatory) took in a production of The Merry Wives of Windsor at the reconstructed Globe Theatre in Southwark last night. What a freaking glorious evening! We ate dinner at Northbank (recommended by our friend Kay, a loyal reader) with views over the Thames toward the Globe then walked over the fabulous Millennium footbridge for the play. Seeing a play in the reconstruction during a beautiful night with superb acting of a Shakespeare play--does it get better than this? The only wart on the evening (well, not the only one--see below) was that PK and I couldn't sit together (fully booked house), but that just means that the Globe is thriving just as it did in Shakespeare's time. The last time I saw this play was in 1980 in Stratford; Ben Kingsley played Master Ford.

Note to theatre lovers in NYC: Merry Wives (this very production) is coming to Pace's Schimmel Theater in October/November as part of the joint venture. It's well worth seeing--laugh out-loud funny throughout with wonderful music. Mistress Page and Mistress Ford go at it like Lucy and Ethel, and Falstaff is a scream. This has to be one of the cleverest productions ever. It is also suitable for, I'd say, 10 year-olds and older. Go and see it! Hopefully you won't be sitting next to Lord Farty like I was (this guy actually lifted his cheek and emitted 3 blasts unselfconsciously during the performance--what gives?).

Roses and Thorns in the UK

Roses:

1. You are allowed to bring your dog to pubs in the UK. Now that is civilized. Then again, with my dog and a beer, I don't know that I'd ever leave the pub.

2. Public transportation is majorly subsidized--trains are relatively cheap, fast, and even a little swank.

3. National Health (alright, we're getting there in the US).

4. It costs you to drive in the center city of London (got close to this in NYC--should try again).

5. Excellent Shakespeare any night you want it.

6. Babysitters are respected professionals--with serious training and credentials.

7. Tipping doesn't break the bank--about 10% here.

8. Afternoon Tea

9. Being within 3 hours of Paris

10. Old, gorgeous churches

Thorns:

1. Roundabouts--really? Bane of my UK existence.

2. Left-hand side driving--really really? I feared for my life in the passenger's seat (and PK is an excellent driver).

3. Queuing as a sport and/or art. Just say no. How many times did we face a long line only to discover another entrance with no line at all?

4. Roads--lord have mercy. But I guess this explains the emphasis on trains.

Travel day

In the (baseball) World Series, they designate a day off between games a travel day - allowing the teams to move from one's home field to the other. Yesterday was a travel day for us - moving from Edinburgh to London. Different cities & as the Scots would no doubt like to point out, different countries. We took the train down - a touch over 4 hours to travel 400 miles (much better than driving 7-odd hours). Once again, I have to say that the Europeans are ahead of the US when it comes to transport systems. Speed, efficiency, low impact - trains are far better than everyone driving, even better than flying. How come the US can't develop a high speed rail network, at least linking the eastern seaboard? It makes no sense.

Back in the familiar confines of the Knightsbridge Hotel. They treat us like family. Well, paying family members...

Edinburgh

It's a happening place. The Fringe Festival is in full swing, and we are staying at a hotel (the most expensive one of the trip) right in the thick of it: street performers every 3 feet and hordes of people. Edinburgh is already a wonderful city with its bookends of Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood Palace, position on the Firth of Forth, hipster young folks, and old and majestic architecture. We are loving it and wish we had more time to explore and enjoy. We visited the castle and the Camera Obscura site, took in some street performances, but might call it a day. The kids (and truth be told, Philip and I too) are fatigued from all the travelling and sight-seeing. We're headed back to London via train tomorrow and will hopefully regenerate a bit there before heading off to Paris.

Training for the Black Watch Regiment

Today, (or, actually, two days ago, I forgot to blog it, it's Clare and Mom and Dad promised me I could) we went to: "Landmark" a wilderness/forest theme park.

This park was truly amazing... it had a 30 foot rock wall, a huge water slide, a forest canopy walk, a tree-top hebertimsm course, bumper cars, and, believe it or not, a 35 foot sky dive
First, for all those curious souls, (which I assume is all of you) who are thinking, "Would Sid Ray really let a 10-year old girl do a sky dive?" I shall let Isabella explain the sky dive:

we went when it was raining so climbing up was scary even though we had a harness on!

when we got up there it looked a lot higher then it was Clare went first since she hadn't looked down yet she jumped and when she had done it I jumped it was so much fun! you went fast at first but then your harness caught you and you slowed down. Grown ups went a lot faster and when they hit the bottom they fell!

Next, the waterslide. This thing was HUGE!!!! and it had three slides: The "Otter" Which was a tube that wasn't that steep but curved and twisted. The "Wildcat" which was medium-steep, and then got flat, and then was medium-steep, and then got flat, and so on, so your stomach lurched about 5 times. AWESOME!!!!!!! But even more awesome was "THE FALCON": The decline was almost totally vertical and you dropped like a stone, and it seemed like you were re-entering the earth's atmosphere. I wanted to do the falcon, but maybe try the wildcat first, but Isabella was persistent, so she jumped on the little tube thing that makes you go faster (and also prevents you from getting wet) and pulled me on, and we went straight down. It was the most fun waterslide I have ever been on. (I haven't been on many, but I assume this is one of the most fun.)

And so we come to "Ropeworx" the tree-top climbing/hebertism course. The above pictures are of Ropeworx. First, you got on a harness, except this one didn't let you fall, so if you fell, you would be caught by a rope, and the harness/rope was attached to a metal bar that went along the whole course. So, once attached to your harness, you ran up some stairs to like 10 feet up, and jump across some horizontal, moving, logs, then some vertical, moving logs. Then, without a rope to hold on to, (and by this point you were 15 feet in the air,) you walked across a thin log. Then, well, I'll just say "and so on, and so forth". Out of the 10 obstacles, the scariest and the hardest was at the top, at 20 feet, and you walked across a thin wire with only a rope to hold on to, the wire stretched 20 feet. I did it 3 times, Mom & Dad did it once each, and to Isabella's anguish, you had to be 1.5 meters. For under 1.5 meters, there was one called "Tarzan Trail" Which was, (at highest) 10 feet, and the obstacles were more secure, and your harness rope was shorter.

To give you an idea of how scared I was, I thought the sky dive was less scary.

Emmett would like to talk about the bumper cars:

They were awesome!!!!!! but you couldn't bump anyone. I was in the blue motorcycle, red motorcycle, and I forget the other car.

Isabella & Emmett can tell you about the rock wall:

The rock wall was very tricky. It was raining slightly, which made the wall slippery - our feet and hands kept slipping off the grips. But we kept trying - Isabella made it to the top a couple of times, Emmett made it 2/3 rds of the way up (Emmett seemed to enjoy falling down, supported by the rope harness, more than climbing up). Clare nearly made it to the top as well. It was hard, but lots of fun.

We all had an amazing time...

IFAQS

Here are some useful Imaginary Frequently Asked Questions about the trip. Feel free to add questions in the comment section below...

How are the children bearing all the castles, abbeys, and ruins?

Very well. There's usually some "please don't make us go...we'll do anything" sort of thing, but once we're out of the car, they end up having a good time.

How many miles did you drive in the UK?

Just under 2,000.

Who drives and was it an adjustment to shift to the left side?

Emmett drives. Ok, no, Philip does. His Aussie driving muscle memory kicked in after about 500 miles or so.

What's the weirdest thing you've seen?

We were mooned yesterday on the highway near Inverness. Also some tourists hit a sheep on the road just before us on Skye. And one of our B&B hostesses was prancing around the place in a towel and her husband served Philip a sausage and two tomato halves in very suggestive formation.

Are your notoriously picky-eater children finding the right foods to eat?

So far so good. The girls have even tried some new foods! We end up buying a ton of fruit to put off scurvy for another day. Ireland was tough on our vegetarian.

Why aren't the kids posting on this blog?

Good question. Because they are too busy playing Jelly Car apps on the i-thingys.

Are you using this blog post passive-aggressively to send them a message?

Of course not! The kids have been super troupers so far.

Laundry-- how are you managing?

By hook or by crook. We just conned the last hotel into washing almost all our clothes for only 17 pounds.

Are you and Philip gaining tons of weight from eating 3 catered meals per day, including full cooked breakfasts and desserts at every meal?

No comment.

How is Finnegan adjusting to rural life in Virginia?

Very well-- George has sent photos; Finnegan looks happy and at home. Sniff. We miss him.

Skye's the limit

A day trip out of our home base in the Highlands. First stop, Eilean Donan castle, home of the MacRae clan. The castle has recently (90 years ago) been restored to its former glory - not surprisingly, its past history includes a demolishing by the English around the time of the Jacobite rebellion, as well as various other comings and goings of numerous interested parties. It hasn't escaped our notice that the MacRae's are sons of the Raes, possibly Rays? The new lady of the manor...

With her brood...

Then off, speed bonnie boat over the bridge (literally), to Skye, first to the postcard pretty Portree:

And then for a (land) cruise up the coast of Skye, where we first spotted a rock called the Old Man of Storr (the distinct volcanic plug below):

In a fit of madness - especially considering our lack of appropriate hiking gear (Vans, Keds and Converse made up the bulk of the footwear)- we decided to get a first hand look at the Old Man. Half way up we emerged from the forrest & clouds for our first glimpse of the ocean/islands below:

Getting closer, the intrepid mountaineers pause before their final assault on the peak:

Then the payoff:

The views were spectacular, the rock formations out of this world. We'd been told that Skye was something special and it did not disappoint. Apparently the local custom is to unwind from a day of strenuous outdoor activity with a dram of the local brew. Fortunately the nearest pub had a reasonable selection:

300 (!!) varieties of scotch. Long winters up here.

PS Emmett made it to the top first--5.6km with a 300m vertical. Not bad.

Nessie sightings!!!

After visiting Urquhart Castle ruins on the dark Scottish loch, we took a 1 hour cruise to look for the monster. As you can see, our efforts were wildly successful. Nessie seems to be bright green in the sunlight and black and menacing at night...This great loch is incredibly deep--700 feet and cold as ice. Our captain told us that a Polish marine dove off the cruise boat last year, about 20 yards from the inaccessible shore (ostensibly to prove that it IS accessible). He made it a few feet before passing out with hypothermia. Or maybe Nessie scared him senseless.

In a Cottage on the Shore of a Dark Scottish Loch

We are utterly charmed by Scotland. The Lovat Arms, where we camp for four nights (yay!), is a converted Victorian manor house, eco-friendly, and situated in Fort Augustus (pop. 400), a picturesque village on the southern shore of Loch Ness where the loch meets the Caledonian Canal. About 100 feet from the Lovat, a series of locks allows boat traffic from western Scotland into Loch Ness. The sluice openings are quite a spectacle as the man operating the locks plays his bagpipes while the boats putter by. We are so happy to be in one place for a few days at least and soak in the highland atmosphere. After a walk along the canal and loch shore, through the town abbey's grounds and over to a children's farm animal petting area, we are now headed to Urquhart Castle.

Points for any readers who can identify the song reference in this post's title (sans google)...

A Series of One-Night Stands

Some photos here of gorgeous Sligo (top), Clare (middle), and Galway (bottom)--in the reverse order we took them... I realize that the title of the post with the photo of PK and kids is a little, er, strange...

We've had 5 nights in a row at different sleeping establishments in Ireland and, as an English teacher, I know this has the makings of a good compare/contrast essay. Certainly the 5 places offered us vastly different experiences (some with toilet seats, some without). We began in Wexford staying at a resort-y place on the Slaney river--nice but a little unfriendly and crummy food. The following night, as loyal readers will recall, we stayed with the O'Brien chieftain who has recently built a neo-castle on a hill in Newmarket-on-Fergus complete with nouveau gargoyles, a turret, crenellated tower, and long, swooping driveway. His family line broke from the that of the lord who apparently owns Dromoland Castle (about 4 miles away). Our host's family opted to remain Catholic and lose everything while the other side turned Protestant and retained the lands (and hence own a real castle). The third night was spent in Galway's The Skeffington Arms, a back-packer inn stop-over without toilet seat. Despite its disabled throne, the Skeff had its charms--a lovely Victorian breakfast room and a super sweet concierge who appeared to be the only worker in the whole building. Moving onward to Sligo, we stayed at An Cruisin Lan (Gaelic for "The Full Jug"), an old guesthouse (SRO type) with a statue of the Virgin Mary in a Boston Red Sox hat at the desk. It was clean, and our host, Liam McGettigan, was terribly efficient, but hmmmmm. This was a creaky old place. Finally, in Belfast, we're staying at The Cullendon, a retro-fitted Church of Ireland bishop's palace--very swank and gorgeous with a fancy pool and all the mod-cons. While a good compare-contrast essay would go into proper detail and find an argument that somehow makes these disparate one-nighters cohere, as the teacher, I don't have to do that. But I will say that the Catholic - Protestant issues factored in 3 of the 5 spots. Having travelled from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland now, the division marked only by a change in the flags you see flying (and a change in currency), I wonder at the willfulness that keeps the sides apart. (PK notes that last time he crossed that particular border [late '70s\ it was marked by tanks, machine gun nests, concrete blocks and tommies. That was, obviously, even more incomprehensible). That said, we have been careful not to be ugly Americans (+ an Aussie) in the Republic, but when we arrived in Belfast, we felt it was alright to walk in like we owned the place and be loud and tacky. Off to Scotland tomorrow for 4 nights on Loch Ness. Will we try haggis? Will we see Nessie? Will we discover what Scotsmen wear under their kilts? Stay tuned...

Galway and beyond

After the Burren we pulled into Galway - apparently a real destination for the backpacking set. With a nice setting on the water and a reputation for the best place in the land for Irish music, its no wonder. There were backpackers a plenty, and bars a plenty (go figure). Despite all this, probably the most memorable aspect of our brief visit to Galway was the hotel. Our never ending requirement to have connecting rooms ran into the historic construction of small Irish town hotels - no connecting rooms. So we bunked in a "family" room that no doubt is more often used by groups (schools? pods?) of backpackers...or stag/hen parties. Galway's reputation attracts this crowd as well. Anyway, back to the hotel, which had the curious feature of...no toilet seat. This after paying up for the en suite! The WC had a cover but no seat. Curious - theories range from a stag party prank, some struggling band looking for an edge (apparently the Beatles once played an early gig in Hamburg wearing toilet seats), the maid absconding with the thing while renovating her own place, to a backpacker deciding that carrying your own toilet seat with you was the hygenic option. Who knows - but the fairer sex of our travelling party grumbled.

After a nice dinner & a good rest, we casually drove around Galway county, into Mayo (home of the Kearns clan) and off to Sligo.

Irish Surfing Dudes?

This one's for you Jon Jorgl.
Today (Wed 18th) we went to a funky little place. We arrived late afternoon in Sligo & decided to head out to the coast for dinner, to a place called Strandhill. With a name like that, we were kind of expecting, I dunno, sand dunes? What we found was a cool, hip sort of place - a real surf mecca. Or what passes for a surf mecca in these climates. The waves were rolling in, probably three footers, a shore break, but breaking decently far out from shore. The air was a chilly 58 farenheit (8pm); the water was only probably slightly warmer, but there were plenty of dudes (Irish dudes?) in the water, full wetsuits of course. Kind of cool to see these guys surfing with the setting sun behind them, then everyone retiring to the local watering hole for a…pint of Guiness. Hmmm. We ate a nice meal in a place run by an Aussie (of course). Worth a trip for the die hard surfers (fly into Shannon, connect to Sligo, beach is 200 yards from the airport). Worth a detour for the wandering souls.

Erin Go Bragh

Some impressions of Ireland: it's cold in summer; the food is very creamy (heavy cream in coffee, in cereal, in potatoes, on fruit); We overheard a family speaking in Gaelic at dinner--it is pronounced very differently than it's spelled (but I guess that's just our Anglo limitations--Clare is toying with spelling her name the Gaelic way, "Chlair"); the landscape is breathtaking--we can see how this was to Edmund Spenser a "Faerie" world; it feels a little magical and auld (George, you need to be here to discuss "me lucky charms"); the history of British domination is more apparent closer to Dublin; here in the West you feel closer to Cuchulain and Fergus than to Parnell and Collins. There's a young population and sports is central (even women's sports! we've seen footage of women's Gaelic Football and girls trotting around with hurling sticks, what a wicked game); golf courses take up some of the prettiest parcels of land, and the Celtic Tiger economy is now a bit of an sickly kitten--we have heard terrible riches to rags stories since we've been here--here's hoping it starts to roar again.

Keep Clare Clean

No, not that Clare! We had some fun with the signage around beautiful County Clare and we soaked up its spectacular views. What can I say? This place lives up to the hype. Leaving Newmarket (Limerick/Shannon) we went to the coast on our way to Galway. First stop, the Cliffs of Moher. Yes, it's touristy, yes, it's crowded - but with reason. The rocks are spectacular, as is the feeling as you gaze out over the Atlantic ocean roaring below you. Apparently a couple of the Spanish Armada ships made it down here as they scurried towards their home waters after taking a beating from a storm. Out of the frying pan into the fire. Can you imagine what their reaction was - "land ho" (or whatever you say in Spanish), quickly followed by "Dios mio, estos son enorme rocas culo." The folklore that I recall was that a decent number of sailors made it ashore & hence the somewhat darker, swarthier appearance of some folks from the west coast of ireland. The official count is that 6 sailors survived - hardly enough to meaningfully contribute to the gene pool of the Galwegians. Anyway, quite a place. And, by the way, the coolest tourist centre around - dug into the rocks so you don't even know its there, minimises its footprint…very nice.
Leaving the cliffs, we tooled through the Burren, an eerie moonlike landscape, apart from dashes of emerald between the rocks. It's a huge limestone landscape, I guess formed by the presence of a warm inland sea some millennia ago. The past inhabitants used the plentiful limestone rocks to form the famous dry rock walls (PK was taking plenty of notes, given his interest in building rock walls). It really is something else, the labour that went into & still goes into, building these walls. The effect is really quite stunning. Even more interesting, we stopped at a megalithic burial site, the Poulnabrone Dolmen, likely 6,000 years old. Take that Stonehenge - although the capstone was only 1.5 tonnes. Still, it took quite an effort to build the thing. I dare say not many things we construct now-a-days will still be standing 6,000 years from now.

Slainte

Life on the emerald isle is relaxed, so relaxed that there aren't a lot of free wi-fi ops; now that we're in Galway, we're cooking again. But we have some catching up to do. After we left Dublin, and a quick stop at Stephen Daedalus's Martello Tower, we spent the day resting and relaxing in Wexford at a resort on the shores of the river Slaney. The next morning we struck out for the West, stopping at the gorgeously ruined Rock of Cashel and the rather underwhelming King John's Castle (eh, a 12th-century castle, whatever) in Limerick, taking a wee detour through Cappamore, County Limerick, where Philip's ancestors (the O'Briens) resided. We pushed on to Newmarket-on-Fergus to our B&B where our host brought out his broadsword (really), a replica of an original chieftain sword from the, wait for it, O'Brien clan! Then he dragged out a boomerang and a didgeridoo! We were at home. Fantastic dinner at Durty Nellie's (best meal we've had in Ireland, land of heavy cream & blood pudding), next to Bunratty Castle. There's a castle, a ruin, or a castle ruin around every bend in County Clare.

And now for some perspective on the first 12 days. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words...
Sid and Philip upon first landing on these fair shores. Bright (well, almost) and chipper:

Sid and Philip with one of their offspring after a week on the road:

Its been a tough week & a bit. But things are looking up:

Although Emmett may have beaten us to the punch (bowl?):

How are the kids faring? Lets go to the videotape...
Once again, the start of the trip, everyone looking keen (chipper?):

But after a few days, things started to deteriorate. Or maybe it was the imbibing (cf Emmett above):

Of course, being the good parents we are, we threatened the kids with dire consequences unless they bucked up. Unfortunately, we found it necessary to follow through on the threat...

But its onward & upward for more weeks of travel...