Beer, Brats and Braids

Movin right along! This post deals with the end of September – we’re almost caught up!

After our last guests departed to head back for the states - that hallowed land of Targets and Wal-Marts, pumpkin pie and peanut butter, and let’s not forget the reasonably priced steak dinners (sigh) – Nate and I took a deep breath and hung out around our house doing nothing for an entire weekend. September 9th marked the first weekend since the beginning of June that wasn’t booked with either entertaining guests or taking a trip of our own! That was three solid months of activity. While we were glad for the break, it was also a bittersweet moment, realizing our only summer in Dublin was coming to an end. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the weekend of relaxation!

We couldn’t keep still for long, though. Two weeks later, we hopped a flight to Munich, Germany – home of the famed Oktoberfest! A colleague of Nate’s had reserved a table for anyone who wanted to join in, and we were only too eager to throw our hats in the ring. We were also lucky to be able to share this journey with our friends Amy and Kieran.

Oktoberfest was a mostly fun and interesting experience. We didn’t know what to expect really, but it ended up being pretty much what you hear about – lots of beer, food, music and singing. The beers were gigantic, and much stronger than the brews we were accustomed to. The women who served them must have done some heavy-duty weight lifting to gear up for the event, because they would heft about six or seven of these things at a time, spreading them out onto the table in a grand fashion. If you look in the background of the pic below, you will see how intimidated I am by the sheer size of these mugs. Nate on the other hand, looks excited, while Christian, a German guy we hung out with, appears completely indifferent.















The tents were like gigantic warehouses, and there was a raised platform stage in the middle of the tent for the band to play. The band would alternate between traditional German sing-alongs to cheesy US wedding dance music (“I Will Survive” made it onto the set list multiple times throughout the day). There wasn’t as much dancing as I would have expected, probably because there wasn’t room for it. By the end of the day, the tent we were in was so packed that it was hard to move much of anywhere. It also got pretty smoky as the day wore on – we realized how spoiled we’d been in Ireland, where smoking is banned in all public buildings.

















One thing that surprised us was the number of people in traditional Bavarian garb! We thought it would mostly be cheesy tourists and people who were paid to dress up, but I would say about 60% of the crowd were wearing the lederhosen (the guys’ suspender outfits) and dirndl (the ladies’ busty dresses). We all decided that the outfits were pretty attractive for both sexes.

Well, we started the day off at about 10:30 or 11am, and the festivities continued until 11 or 11:30 in the evening, so you can imagine the condition of the people in the tent. I found the beer to be so filling that I couldn’t have very many, and after about seven hours, my attention span for the whole thing started to wane. So we headed out for the amusement park outside the tent, which I must say was one of the best amusement parks I’ve ever been to! They had about three different versions of every sort of ride you could imagine!

The next day we pulled our bleary-eyed selves out of bed for a final breakfast together before heading our separate ways: Amy to London for work, Kieran and Nate back to Dublin for work, and Megan . . . oh yeah, I’m not allowed to work. So I decided to stick around Germany and travel on my own for a few days – my first solo journey! Stay tuned for that post! Until then, auf wiedersehen!

Four Weeks and Counting

Nate and I are both having a bout of homesickness! The weather is getting colder and the days getting much, much shorter here. Things are going on back home that we miss being a part of - like the American football season and the Cardinals being in the World Series (Go Cards!). And since the date of our return is fast approaching, it's sometimes hard to drum up the motivation and get excited about the final months of hard work and gross weather.

With that said, we're doing what we can to get out of the funk. We've booked tickets to Copenhagen for a few weeks from now, so that will definitely be a fun treat. And luckily, Nate has a work conference in Orlando the week after Thanksgiving, so we're both managing to get back for Turkey day!!

The picture obviously isn't of Nate or I, or anyone I know of for that matter, but I thought these kids were cute. The joy on their faces mirrors my joy to be headed home for Thanksgiving. And man oh man, don't those pies look good?!

I try really hard to never take holidays for granted, but this one will be special indeed, since we had to miss Thanksgiving last year. It was hard being overseas that day, when we knew our families were getting together. We knew it was a special day, but felt like no one else around us knew it. I canNOT wait to stuff myself silly with all the yummy food I've missed, to veg out in front of the TV watching football, to joke around with my family, to see loved ones I haven't seen in MUCH too long!!! Seriously, it can't get here fast enough. Below is my tribute to what I'll be doing after the big meal. Once again, not my family, but the photo represents what most families will be doing:

So that's something to look forward to! It really does take missing the holidays to truly appreciate them - I hope to not have to relearn that lesson for a while though - if ever!

To our friends and family back in the states - you are loved and missed! If you are reading this, you haven't forgotten about us - so I really hope that some are reading this! Four weeks to go!

Family Matters

My apologies to our readers if you are confused. Since we’ve never quite caught up, I’ve had to write posts somewhat out of order. I’ll do my best to get us caught up so we don’t have to keep hopping from the past to the present. In the meantime, this post spans late August/early September – just about six weeks behind!

After Craig and Nathan left, I had five days to clean again and do laundry before our last major visit of the tourist season – Nate’s parents! We were truly excited to host them and show off everything we’d learned during our 11 months here.

Nate’s family covered a lot of ground in a short period of time! Local excursions included a visit to Guinness (of course, although I’m not sure if they cared for the black stuff), Dublin Castle, Kilmainham Jail, Trinity College, and Malahide Castle. Nate’s mom is an accomplished gardener, so they also toured a variety of local gardens. We recommended a few of our favourites, like the Powerscourt Estate and St. Stephens Green, but Nate’s mom was able to find even more and better ones that we hadn’t even heard of.



Nate’s fam also took a few long-distance treks out to the west coast. In true Irish fashion, it rained incessantly on their one-day trip to the Ring of Kerry! That’s zero for two for those of you who are keeping track on our good-weather score for the Ring! We had a bit better luck on our weekend in Galway though. We all took a trip around the northwest Connemara region, which sports some of Ireland’s greenest, hilliest landscapes. It was cool to see the peat bogs, with chunks cut out of it to use in the fires here. One of the quintessential elements of Ireland: the smoky-sweet smell of a peat fire. We also visited a beautiful Abbey (pictured below). Kylemore Abbey was a private family home to some super-rich guy from England. Now it’s a nuns’ residence and an all-girls boarding school.



We wrapped up the trip with a visit to the pub where Nate’s brother Pat and I had previously discovered a great traditional music group. They didn’t disappoint – the group fit in the right amount of ballads, classic sing-along songs, and fast, whirling instrumental jigs and reels before we finally had to retire for the evening. I really want to make it out to that pub a few more times before we leave! It was a great end to the visit for Nate’s family. The next day they departed with a few souvenirs, a ton of photos and even more memories for us to share around the holiday tables for years to come!

Those Wild & Crazy Hungarians

Nate and I decided to go out to the Dublin Theatre Festival over the weekend. There was a play that I'd really really wanted to see - The Exonerated, about inmates on death row who were . . . well, exonerated. The play was apparently written from verbatim interviews and court documents of actual cases in the US - and one of the actresses was an actual exonerated inmate. Amazing. Of course, this play was completely sold out, with no hope of acquiring tickets. What to do?

So, we decided to gamble and see something else. We chose a Hungarian production called Rattledanddisappeared, or Ledarálnakeltűntem in its native language. I saw the cover photo on the program (pictured above) and thought, "That looks interesting!" It looked like something a little off-the-beaten-path, so we thought we'd give it a try.

Interesting is an egregiously mild way of describing what we saw. Wow. Perhaps “wacked out” is a more accurate phrase for what we experienced. Or maybe “1984 on cocaine and ecstasy” is yet another way to put it. The three-hour performance was all in Hungarian with infrequent English subtitles. Featuring broadway tunes, rap, breakdancing, a lady with her umbilical cord still attached, a guy eating poop, a dominatrix, a random alien, a guy on the gymnastics rings, and vague references to a linear plot, it was definitely a shock to the system. I was so blown away I had to write about it to get my mind around it. Here are some pictures, just so I can share a little of our experience:

This old naked dude came onto the scene after the main character got intimate with the umbilical-cord lady.

Here, our main character, after being put into a blender, is rebirthed into another universe. He's about ready to get up and go surfing. Does that make any sense to you? Well, wouldn't you go surfing after being put into a blender and then being rebirthed into a new universe? Don't tell me you wouldn't.

Crazy stuff. Nate loved it. Which was good, because I was thinking I'd never get him to go to a play with me ever again. Then, after 24 hours and lots of thinking and reminiscing, I decided I too enjoyed it. Even if I still don't have a clue of what happened. Not what I expected, but it definitely had an impact on me – as is evidenced by my need to ruminate on it here. (Insert dubious head shake) Whatever. Time to move on!

The Return of the Prodigal Photos - Part II: Greece!!!

Around the same time that Matt sent his photos, we found our photos from Greece!!! Take a gander at these pics and see why we were so devastated to have lost these for three months. Above is from the acropolis at Lindos, on the Island of Rhodes. We visited here during our cruise. It was HOT that day, and our tour guide was a bit long-winded, so we had to escape from her after a while. But the views were gorgeous!
















Nate enjoying the sunset on Mykonos (pronounced "Mick", not "Mike"). Mykonos is clearly the party island of Greece. We weren't there long enough to partake in the insanity - we had plenty of that to deal with on our cruise ship (lots of recent high school grads were cruising with us).















Here I am taking in the view during our trip to Delphi. I don't really need to say more about this - it was breathtaking.
















Santorini - our favorite island. If we were to do this trip again, knowing what we know now, we'd have scrapped the cruise and stayed here - and maybe taken a trip to a few of the other islands. Of course, with our method, we now know about a lot of islands we would otherwise have missed. Patmos is quite remote, but we loved its peaceful, subdued nature.














This is the porch of the Caryatids. It's one of the more famous features of the Acropolis in Athens, next to the Parthenon, of course. The Parthenon has a lot of scaffolding around it, so the pictures of it aren't as impressive. These were uber-cool though.

Hopefully we've teased you enough to look at our other images now! I'm putting about 20 or 30 more on Flickr, so just click on the link in the sidebar for more. We took 500 pics in all, so I'm just giving you the highlights. Unless it's your own, there's no trip that's worth looking at 500 photos! Anyway, enjoy!

The Return of the Prodigal Photos - Part I: Pat & Matt's Visit

Our friend Matt sent us some pics from when he and Nate's brother Pat visited back in July! I realize this is out of order, and their visit was a long time ago, but I wanted to put some additional photos up besides those of me and Pat on our tour. Besides, it reminds me of those wonderful bygone days when we could wear short sleeves here! Above, the guys celebrate their reunion.















And of course, what trip would be complete without a compulsory visit to the Storehouse?

There's also a few more pics on Flickr. Not much, but a little memoir to their short visit.

Another Trip Around the Sun

We've officially been here for just over a year now. Above are our friends Liz and Kurt - though they live in the states, they were the first friends we made here, just one week after arriving. A mutual friend of ours got us in touch, since they were ending their Irish vacation in Dublin at the same time that we made our big move. It was great making a connection so early in this tenuous experience.

We arrived on a chilly, overcast Wednesday and walked the town aimlessly, trying to get a sense of the road that lay ahead. 365 days, 11 explored countries, 5 groups of visitors later, and here we are. Perhaps a little more educated about the world around us, but definitely hungry to learn more. We are still so amazed at what we've seen and done this year, and are immensely grateful for the opportunity to take on this adventure.

I remember how lonely and overwhelmed I felt in our temporary corporate apartment when Nate left for his first day of work. I remember the hammering jackhammers and the chiming church bells outside the window. I remember the comfort of my Harry Potter book sitting on the bedstand. I remember hours at the Internet Cafe, squirming on a rigid wooden stool, searching for a place to live - one that would take our cats. I remember wondering if Dublin would ever feel like home.

Flying back from Germany last Wednesday, I remember sighing with familiar relief as I looked out my airplane window and saw Ireland's green coastline break through the mist. While I know we will never be fully settled here, I do feel that Dublin is our home here in Europe. How far we've come.

Here's to six more months in this beautiful place!