Category: Trip

The Emerald Isle

I’m in Ireland. My trip here was easy but to be honest about as unpleasant as some of the Oz trips: uncomfortable, long (since I took the train to NYC before flying), and capped with an extremely turbulent red eye over to Ireland. Problem is I didn’t sleep a wink, so was very tired upon arrival! 

I’m staying with Florence here – she’s been in Ireland over a year now. We spent the day catching up and she showed me around the village in which she lives.

That’s the local university just a hop-skip from her apartment. There also the ruins of a ~400 year old castle right next door. Aside from such things (and the weather) Ireland reminds me a lot of Australia so far. 

Many of the graves in that shot are older than Australia πŸ™‚

By about 4 I was crashing hard, but I managed to make it until about 8pm before I was just falling asleep on the couch. So it was an early night for me!

Of course now it’s 3am and I’m wide awake!

Air, Land & Sea

In a couple of days I’m heading off for my first European trip of the summer. Here’s the approximate route:

trip map

At a rough estimate, before I get home, I will have taken 8 train trips, 4 flights and 1 ferry crossing. There will be a lot of travel to fit so many destinations in such a short trip but I know it’ll be worth it.

I’ll spend the first half of the trip (Ireland and the UK) with Florence, and the second half (in France) with Sue and her daughter. As usual, I’m planning on casting myself in the ‘wise and seasoned but still ruggedly handsome ex-pat Australian supertasting world traveler‘ role. This will hopefully serve me well in France, where I know none of the local tongue! πŸ˜‰

Of course I’ll be blogging as usual. Several of you have expressed particular interest in this trip, so I’ll strive to make the posts entertaining.

See you in Ireland!

European Tour 2015

I’m excited to announce my European Tour, coming to a historic location near you this very summer!

The tour kicks off in late May with Ireland:
  
I’ll be going to visit my BFF Florence, and she’ll be so happy I’m sure she’ll buy me a potato! Expect blog jokes involving shamrocks, the colour green and pots of gold πŸ˜‰

Somehow I’ll get from Ireland to London (the details are fuzzy!), since about a week later I’ll be catching the channel tunnel train to Paris:
  
Here I’ll be vacationing with Sue and her daughter. Sue’s there for a conference, and I expect when she half-jokingly suggested to me a few months ago I meet her there she never thought I’d agree!

She’ll be so happy, I’m sure she’ll buy me a croissant! Expect blog jokes involving frogs, freedom fries and cheese πŸ™‚

Following France my tour will return to Albany for a month’s engagement at my work (booooring) before I hop the Atlantic once again for Deutschland:
 

 
This leg of the tour will be special, since I’ll be accompanied by KLS, BS, Jim and – most importantly – my Dad!

Two weeks of travel through the fatherland will undoubtedly be accompanied by blog jokes about sausages, horse meat and not mentioning the war πŸ˜‰

It’s going to be a very busy and very exciting summer! I can hardly wait…