The Great Burren 10K

Was UPHILL... Woke this morning to a bit of sun and a slight breeze, all in all a much better weather day than yesterday. Of. Ourselves my Sheila husband still thought it was cold, but he worked through it without much complaining.

Made a quick breakfast of eggs and Irish bacon that was very tasty, then got ourselves race ready. We both had a bumpy nights sleep - maybe yesterday's nap was a wee bit too long? But like true troopers we dressed and walked down to the pub and registered for the run...



Once the race started - did I mention uphill - I turned Trav loose before we even hit the half mile mark. Very unselfish of me no? Really it was for me as much as for him, couldn't stand the nagging I felt was about to come over not going fast enough, blah, blah, blah...

He says he had a good run, I never saw him again so I don't know for fact :-). I did a fast hike all the way up and then ran most of the way down - there was a downhill part, just didn't start till about 4 miles into the 6 mile route. The views were amazing and so I quite enjoyed myself at my 'Jess Pace' and stopped a couple times to read the informational tourist signs and check out the scenery. Trav had the camera, but luckily he actually stopped to take a couple pics.



The bright blue building way at the bottom of the hill was our starting location - it was a huge climb for Ireland standards, I mean I understand we live in the mountains and all, but it was a long way up!



So, I wasn't quite last... But close. But I had a nice time and in my opinion that is all that matters. My traveling companion may disagree...






But all is better with a Guinness mustache! Man, that pint was well deserved and so delicious. Went right down, no effort at all. We met a nice mother-daughter duo from Boston, the mom was born and still has a house in Doolin, and we spent an hour or more drinking Guinness and enjoying the sunshine until we grabbed some desserts and a couple bottles of winefrom the deli and hiked the 1/2 mile back up the hill to home.



As if there was a choice? Well,not for me anyway...

After a shower and a nap - hopefully not too long of a nap - we changed and headed to Ballyvaughn for dinner. It was a good bit too eat and a very pretty drive along the coast. I think we will head back again to try other restaurants on our house owner's list.

So, good night from Ireland, I think I will sleep well tonight!

On The Road Again!

Where in the world are the Roma's? Well at approximately 8:30 this morning, we entered this door to our latest European 'home away from home'.



This is the view out our bedroom window and within 10 minutes, below is the view in the bedroom...



Can you say sleepy time?

We have arrived in a tiny village in Ireland, called Fanore. It is on the southwest coast in county Clare in an area called the Burren. It is absolutely breathtaking and I think we will settle in nicely to our new Irish home.

Getting here was a bit of a challenge since our car looked like this...



And yes it is a manual transmission to boot! Naturally, or unnaturally if you like, Trav was not inclined to be the driver. So, on roads as narrow or more narrow than the French countryside, I proceeded to drive on the wrong - oops, I was corrected at the rental desk that they prefer to call it the left - side of the road, shifting with my left hand. Thank god the clutch is still in the right place! So, we declined the additional insurance... In hindsight we would rethink that decision. Nothing bad yet, but Holy Shit, day one and we have had at least three close calls and it is only 7:20 PM.

There isn't really much to report yet, it was a rather cold and rainy day and we are of course jet lagged, so we have managed to eat, get a few provisions and figure out the heating system in the house. I'm just using this outlet to stay awake for hopefully another hour so tomorrow the jet lag will be mostly gone and we can get going on vacation! Oh - tomorrow we run a 10k up and around our village - should be fun and produce many photo opportunities.

So, I'll leave you with a few more pictures of our home and surrounding views...

At the End - Oh and Elvis Lives!

Tuesday was a nice day spent in downtown Stuttgart in the shopping gallery area.  It was pretty busy for a "work day" and makes one wonder if Germany's money woes are because no one works?  We took the tram from Renseck (Joe and Anya's village) and got to have a nice walk through the village on our way.  They have a couple nice bakeries, a really great looking butcher shop and of course some small grocery stores and other small places.  The tram ride was smooth and easy and we walked through the gallery area and headed to find a place to have some lunch.

We had a nice Italian lunch with a couple glasses of wine and finished with a free round of espresso coffees from our nice waiter.  I even drank most of my little coffee, of course it had as much sugar as I could fit without the coffee turning to syrup!  It was pretty good.  From there we headed to an Australian restaurant for some dessert and dessert drinks before checking out a REALLY nice fur shop on our way back to the tram.  Man, there were some pretty coats and jackets in there and of course our favorite, a beautiful sable coat was only 35K Euros - not bad eh?

The plan for Tuesday night was to tour all the little bars (3 of them) in Renseck village, this would come to be much like a night in small town Iowa.  Starting out, we headed to Joe and Anya's favorite, a greek place owned by a great greek family that have become Joe and Anya's friends.  We had a nice meal there of Souvlaki and Lamb and the most wonderful fried potatoes along with some beers and drinks and a nice chat with Stella (only she speaks english and of course we don't speak German or Greek) and her daughter Katerina.  It was very pleasant and we can definitely understand why they love this place!  We picked up a bar local, Dieter, toward the end of our dinner and he was very entertaining!

Joe and Dieter - Can you believe Dieter is 4 years younger than Joe?

Dieter, Joe, Anya, Stella and Trav

From this bar it was on to the next...  Anya just kept saying that the next bar had a woman owner, Ziggy, that was strange, that she was always "done up" but it a weird way.  We entered the door of this VERY SMALL place and Ziggy's daughter was behind the bar, so Anya immediately asked where was "mom", and down the stairs she came.  The only thing missing was an announcement, "ladies and gentleman, Elvis Presley", yes he is alive and living as a woman in a small German village - no kidding.

Joe, Anya, "Elvis", and me...

So, a couple quickish drinks here - it was very smoky and we were all starting to get tired and of course we had one more bar on our tour.  I didn't really even want to go to this next bar - the neo nazi bar - after Uncle Joe told us his story about the owner and of course constantly referred to it as the nazi bar, but Anya insisted we needed to see all the places in Remseck so in we went.  Instantly I think all of us were a bit on edge, but we sucked down (literally) a shot of Jagermeister each and headed back out the door with a huge sigh of relief - not really a nice place and not one I would go to again.

Wednesday became a bit of a "chill day" with Trav staying at home reading while Anya and I went to do some shopping for a traditional Ukranian dinner that night.  We had a nice bit of tea and hit up the outdoor markets and went to a great bakery and the russian store before heading back to the apartment to a refreshed Trav - he got a nice quiet nap - and had a quick bite for some lunch, then we were kicked out of the kitchen while Anya made Borscht.  It was a really great dinner of Borscht and some russian pasta that is like a ravioli and of course, no russian meal is complete without plenty of vodka!  After dinner, a few sweets and a bunch of tastes of some Czech Republic liqueurs...  put us to bed quite handily!

Yesterday we had a leisurely lunch of leftover borscht before getting in the car to head to Frankfurt.  The original plan was to visit Heidelberg castle, but we ran into traffic that added an extra couple hours due to construction and scratched the plan for just getting to the airport and finding a hotel for a good night's sleep before our flight today.  We take off in just under an hour and it is time to come home - we are ready!  So, hope you all enjoyed the vacation and we will see everyone at some point this summer if not this weekend!

Au Revoir!

American Cop Out

Upon waking in Epernay we were both still a bit under the weather and in particular my nose thought it was running a marathon.  It wasn't appropriate to go to breakfast with toilet tissue stuffed up my nostril (the way I slept the last few hours of the night) so I stuffed the toilet tissue in my bra (ala my friend Kelly who has LOTS of things stuffed in her bra) and headed to breakfast.  After excusing myself 3 or 4 times to go blow, Madame seeing me using toilet paper (pink) brought me a pack of travel size kleenex, what a nice gesture and a life saver for the remainder of the day.  Still thinking it was allergies I popped a Claritin and with my runniness in check we headed out of Epernay towards Verdun.

In Verdun the weather was quite cold and rainy so we enjoyed a quick lunch at a tea house and then towards the Verdun Memorial and the Ossuary of Douamont.  The Ossuary is a cemetary for ~ 15000 unknown dead, again very like our Arlington Cemetary and Trav wanted some pictures.  He took a few, trying to keep the camera and lens dry in the rain and then tired and still feeling under the weather we decided we didn't have the umph to visit the inside of the memorials and museums and marked those for a return trip. 

We decided not to show up at Uncle Joe and Anya's house sick, so a stop for the night in Strasbourg was the plan.  Finally we were getting close and Travis looked on the GPS for a hotel and he found a Hilton - well, we really needed a night with American spaces, a big nice bed, and a big nice bathroom and most of all - room service!  It is funny how when you don't feel well or you are tired towards the end of a trip, money doesn't matter as much, only comfort and knowing what to expect.  So, that was our American cop out - an american hotel and room service - not so bad and so worth everything except the breakfast which was also "american" and not of good quality, runny eggs, not good croissant and pain au chocolat, bad coffee - so we paid a little price in the morning.

I called Uncle Joe in the morning and woke him up... in the Czech Republic, thank goodness we decided not to proceed to Germany the day before!  Maybe he forgot a little that we were coming, and we didn't ever make a solid plan on when we would arrive, so he and Anya went to a spa town in the CR for the long Memorial weekend (he gets american holidays since working for an american company).  So, after a pause to think "who is this woman Jess calling me Uncle Joe" he remembered and said he and Anya would be back to Stuttgart in about 4 hours.  Travis and I headed to the Alsace Wine Route and tooled around through the vineyards, but of course we were slow getting started and headed out at noon, right when the French countryside shuts down for lunch, so we mostly drove around and looked and took pictures and then finally at 3 PM, just when the French country restaurants all close because lunch is over, we were hungry and desperately looking for a place to eat.

We found a nice German style restaurant in a bit bigger village and had some wonderful puff pastry entrees, Trav had chicken baked in his and I had veal and a wonderful sauce in mine with some noodles to soak up the extra sauce.  Just as we were ordering, Joe called to let us know they were close to home and that we could come anytime we wanted.  So, after lunch we headed across the Rhine River into Germany and a FAST trip on the auto route with Trav behind the wheel.  Of course there was tons of construction and at times the lanes get very tight and passing is extremely scary - see the pictures, it is amazing I was able to take these because the rest of the time I had my eyes closed!

After arriving at Joe and Anya's we had bratwurst and other german sausages on the grill with fried potatoes and some vegetable kebabs and of course a few welcoming vodka shots, maybe more than a few, and a bottle of champagne we brought with us to share.  It was a great welcome and nice to be with other english speaking people!  Time for bed and of course maybe a headache or two in the middle of the night (Trav) due to the few shots of vodka.  Anya was nice enough to cook for us in her David apron she got in Italy on their honeymoon - too funny!

Welcome to Germany and the Joel Dougherty residence!