Dublin/Cork Day 2

1300 hrs.... "house keeping!" Damn, we slept til 1! I jumped out of bed and let the cleaning crew know we were still here. Then called the front desk to see when check out was...it was at 1200.  We rushed to pack our stuff and get out. No shower, just a quick refresh and tooth brushing and we were out the door heading to the bus. We hopped on the bus to downtown again. While on the bus we noticed the "Steve Martin tantrum scene" location, which was only a mile away from the actual one. It was now funny....

Once downtown again, we walked around a while and found this Church, which turned out to be Dublin Castle. We took a few pics and kept on moving...

And this nice little park...

 We both wanted to find the Bald Barista, a local coffee shop we had seen the day prior. Luckily, and quite accidentally we walked right to it. We found it, they had great coffee and free WiFi, so we relaxed and did our thing for a few hours there. Our goal was to see if Servas hosts outside Dublin had responded and were available for us. Unfortunately, everyone was gone or ill or already hosting.  So we started checking Servas availability within Dublin or any nearby locations. The time went by with no luck, so we decided to check affordable hotels, and hostels...everything was booked full. In a poetic twist, we later found out a boy band called Take That, was in town causing all our misfortune.  TAKE THAT!  At this point we had no place to stay, and it was pouring down rain...TAKE THAT! Plan B...we checked hostels in Cork, which is a couple hours southwest of Dublin, near the coast. They had plenty of rooms, and lucky for us no boy bands were playing there.  We booked a private room at Sheilas Hostel. Meanwhile we were checking the schedules for Cork-bound trains.  A train was leaving at 21:00hrs, and it was 19:30 when we decided to buy the tickets.  After a 40-minute walk to the station, we made it there in plenty of time.  The train ride was nice and relaxing.

At the train station, we noticed an advertisement for the OBAMA BURGER at Supermac's. We don't have these in U S and A. Might this be his secret plan to pay down the fourteen trillion-dollar deficit? With Cheeseburgers?  He can't be going around selling cheeseburgers while promoting universal health care.  I just don't think this will work... we didn't buy one.

before getting on the train, I was evaluating the usefulness of the Rick Steves Travel book. 

You can clearly see my evaluation. 

Below is the only pic from the train to Cork. Not the best.

~Kale

Dublin - Day 1

We arrived in Dublin at 6:30 am Friday, June 17^th.  The city doesn’t really wake up until 10 am.  Luckily, we were able to hitch a cab ride with my mother and her boyfriend to their hotel, which was in the center of town.  We had coffee in a small café next to their hotel, the Westbury.



We called our Servas contact that had our list of hosts and set off to obtain them around 10:30 am.  For those of you not familiar with Servas, visit www.servas.org.  It is an amazing network of people.  We have a list of Servas hosts for Ireland, UK, Belgium, Netherlands and France.  There is no monetary exchange that is made in the Servas program.  All exchanges are cultural.  It is truly an amazing program.  Anyway – on the way to obtaining the list, we saw St. Patrick’s Cathedral, as well as some of Dublin’s side streets.  We also met my mother and David (her boyfriend) at Davy Byrnes, a famous pub in the city center.  Before parting ways, we made plans to meet at 7:30 pm at Oliver St. John Gogarty’s on Temple Street for some traditional Irish music.  Kale and I then set off for our hotel.  This was around 2:30-ish.

St. Patrick's Cathedral:


Molly Malone Statue:


Just FYI Dublin is Ireland’s capital city, so not only is it expensive, it is also tourist-dense making it very busy.  We had booked a hotel for our first night in Dublin, which ended up being quite far from the city center.  We took a train from Pearse Station to Broombridge, which was about a 20-minute ride out of the city.  Let me set the mood.  Kale had booked this room based on our “shoestring” budget, but we had been hanging out with my mother and her boyfriend at a five-star luxury hotel, and had just flown first class to Ireland.  I was not happy about having to take a step down from five-star luxury, which meant me having to actually walk two miles carrying my backpack to a less desirable location filled with people on a budget like us…WAH!  L  Yes, I was being a big baby.

Once we reached Broombridge, we started walking through a residential-type area following our GPS signal to the location, per Google maps.  The further we walked, the more I whined.  “Why did you book a room SO FAR from the city center?  There are no restaurants and there are NO BARS!!!”  I nagged Kale for a good 15 minutes.

As we walked up to 151 Navan Rd., the address given to us by Google maps, a car was pulling into the driveway.  We asked the driver if we were at the hotel, and he told us we were at his home, which was not a hotel.  We walked away feeling defeated, tired, lost and hungry.  At this point Kale performed a Steve Martin rental car scene from Planes, Trains and Automobiles.  At the time, it wasn’t funny, but looking back, it’s pretty hilarious.  After threatening to cancel our entire trip, we walked back to the train at Broombridge, and discovered the address Google maps had provided us with was incorrect.  Once we found out the correct address to our hotel, we hailed a cab, and finally checked into our room.  By the time we got to our room it was 5-ish, and we were supposed to meet my mother and David at 7:30 pm.  We decided to take a “quick nap,” but overslept and didn’t end up waking until 7:30 pm.  Shit.

We were late.  We took a bus into the city center, and luckily were able to meet up with mumsie. The traditional Irish music was lots of fun, and we ended up eating dinner after the show at an inexpensive Mediterranean restaurant.  We got back to our hotel via cab around midnight and totally crashed.  We slept until 12:30 the next day.  We felt refreshed and ready to take on our next adventure.  

        

New York City - Land of the Expensive!!

New York ended up being pretty interesting.  We’re trying to hold onto our money, so we decided to stay up all night rather than spend money on a hotel room.  We paid $30 to store our backpacks at a cleaner’s in Harold Square, and set out around noon.  We literally walked all day, covering Union Square, the East Village, the Lower East Side, Lower Manhattan, Soho and Times Square.  We also had stayed in Park Slope the evening before so I feel like Kale had a good tour of the city for a first-timer with only 24-hours to explore.

Union Square - National Debt Clock:


Lower Manhattan:


So, I’ve stayed up all night in New York before (when I lived there), but I was in a bar, and I was drunk.  Kale and I decided not to drink because we didn’t want to feel like hell going to the airport.  We went to see a late movie, The Tree of Life, at the AMC Theater in Times Square around 11 pm and by the time the movie got out, it was half passed one.  We could pick up our bags at 7:30 am, so decided we would try to hang out in the city for six hours.

 

We walked through Times Square, and then headed East on 42d St. toward Grand Central Station.  On the way there, we could see the streets starting to get empty, and even witnessed one unfortunate man vomiting throughout the street…I couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t just stay still and finish.  Anyway – we reached Grand Central, but it had closed at 2 am, so we walked back West to Bryant Park(where there was a WIFI signal), and just sat for a while.  We called the Best Western in Times Square, and made sure there was a room available in case the lack of sleep became unbearable, but it didn’t.  We were fine.  We found a small deli around 4 am and bought some fruit.  It began getting light outside around 5 am, and around 5:30 we decided to head back to Herald Square where our bags were being held (right across from Macy’s).  As we walked through the empty streets, we passed a puddle of urine that lead up to a homeless man who had fallen asleep underneath one of Macy’s display windows.  It made me kind of sad for him, but thankful for us that we were soberJ

The cleaners, which had our bags didn’t open until 7:30 am, so we went to a small coffee shop, had a bagel and coffee, and waited.  We watched from the deli’s upstairs window while the city went from completely empty to totally jam-packed full of people.  It was lovely.

As soon as the cleaner’s opened, we grabbed our bags, and jumped on the subway (A train) headed to JFK airport.  We nearly fell asleep on our way to our stop.  Once we made it to the airport, and went through security, it was around 10 am.  Our flight wasn’t until 7 pm.  I slept on the floor for 4 hours, but Kale couldn’t sleep.  Right before our flight, my mother and her boyfriend surprised us, and flew with us to Ireland!  She took us up to the Delta Sky Lounge, which had free beer and wine, and we imbibed right before boarding our flight that also had free spirits.  Our five-hour flight flew by in business class.  We had great food, free drinks, free entertainment and very comfortable sleeping accommodations.  We had been blessed, and looked forward to the journey aheadJ 

Park Slope

We landed at Laguardia around 8-ish last night, took the train to Union Square, found a place to have a drink and searced for a hotel.  We found a place in Park Slope, Brooklyn called The Union Hotel.  The room was TINY!  We literally could not open the door all the way because the bed blocked it.  Good thing Kale and I are used to living in small spaces.  We're currently sitting in a small, local crepe and espresso bar on 7th Avenue and 9th Street called Crespella.  Its so cute!  Our plan is to see as much of the city as possible today.  We'll be posting updates along the way:)

Here's Crespella...and yes, that is me in the window.


 

This is us after we gained five pounds...lol

everything is bigger in texas...soooo we gained five pounds

The past week was spent in Dallas, and then Houston, spending time with my sister, nephews, dad, grandma, etc.  It was super fun, but didn't really take the time to post to our blog.  Oh well.  If you are interested in seeing Dallas and Houston, GOOGLE IT!!!

Back to colorado

This little weekend trip we went to a cabin near Woodland Park, on the way we stopped at Manitou Springs for lunch, this was a great little town, worthy of spending much more time here. We ate at "Sahara" a very good middle eastern restaurant, it was also quite affordable.

Then on to the cabin, where we enjoyed hiking, riding ATV's, and the local wildlife. 

Stopped at a Llama farm on the way to the cabin...did you know they only have bottem teeth.

While we were here we took a little trip up to Cripple Creek, another cool little mining town with lots of interesting history 

Back to the cabin, here's some hiking pics..

Cousin James and I felt as if we conquered Everest.. :)

Goodbye pic from the cabin...

On to Colorado Springs, here's a little Downtown Map we liked, great idea. Too bad we forgot to take more pictures here.

Corn-husker State Wine Adventure.

While visiting KS, we decided to take a short trip to Parks, NE - home of Sage Hill Vineyard and Winery, which is a quaint, family-owned vineyard situated on 17-acres of pasture.  Our sommelier, Carol, was a charming hostess.  She owns the vineyard with her husband, Hal.  All of their wines are varietal, meaning each of them are made from a single grape variety.  Their wine list consists of whites, reds and specialties.  Riesling and Gewürztraminer-lovers will love the white wines, while fans of pinots and merlots will definitely appreciate the reds - Kale's favorite was "the big dog."  If you ask for it, they will know what you mean:)  We tasted 6 wines for only $5, and got to keep the wine glasses as a souvenir!

For those of you desiring a longer stay, Sage Hill offers a loft for around $90 the first night, which includes a bottle of wine, and around $80 for following nights.  They also can hook you up with kayak rentals, and other fun daytime activities.

When we return to the states we might volunteer to do some work for wine:)  See pics below...

    

the land of OZ and Wheat, St. Francis, KS

We had a great time in Kansas, we enjoyed some amazing thunderstorms, with some hail and insanely high winds. We also had some beautiful weather which allowed us to do some motorcycle riding, tuning and changing tires on a couple bikes, shingling a roof, tree trimming, and cleaning gutters. Here's a few pics...

Here's Heidi in soon to be harvested wheat field.

Heidi and I shingling the roof 

Trimming branches to hang a swing.

arrived in denver

Yesterday we arrived in Denver, CO to stay with sis for a couple days. We noticed that we both feel kinda weird since we aren't really on a vacation, we dont have to rush our schedule to get everything we wanna get done in a limited "vacation time". We also don't have to get back to work, so there's no deadlines or TPS reports do stress about when we get home. :-) We will be doing some odd jobs once we get to KS, but we look forward to it. ~K

Un-mericanizing

In order not to stand out like a typical Merican tourist, we have taken notes from many travelers from other countries and some wisdom from our own experience. Simply put, the rest of the world really doesn't care about your favorite team, if your colors run or not, or about your favorite armed forces, and especially not about your DG, Coach, Nike, Ed Hardy, etc, crap

Here's a short list we've started, and sure to be expanded

1. no blinding white tennis shoes, white socks.
2. no american flag shirts or patriotic items whatsoever.
3. no conspicuos brand name logos, just plain old everyday clothes.
4. no jewelry or accessories that screams "please rob me"
5. no baseball caps

~K

t-36.00hrs

Well, our flight leaves Phoenix in about 36 hrs. Heres a pic of my packing work, 3 t's, 6pr socks, 1 jeans, 3 long sleeve shirts, 3 undies,gloves, plus 1 set of clothes ill have on. In the bag is small first aid kit, power cords, id's and hygiene stuff. Anything else we need we'll get along the way by trade or purchase.