3/25/05

Off to Paris and then... most likely Avignon first.
We got up at 4:20a at our campground in Amsterdam. We packed up the wet tent and gear and caught the 5:55 tram to central station. And caught the 6:56A Thalys train to paris. We must have looked pretty funny with our lidl bag that was full of holes and all of our wet gear sitting in 1st class being waited on by people in suits. We will have to take the metro in paris to another station. More public transit learning oppertunites.
... When we got off the train, some milk had leaked out of the lidl bag and onto the luggage compartment. oops...
Well, the transfer fro, Gare Paris Nord to Gare de Lyon turned out to be pretty simple. The lady even let us on with our railpasses. Thanks travel gods. Once at Paris Lyon, we caught a train to St. Germain des Fosses, a small town in the middle of France. We had almost 2 hours before our next train so we went to get groceries and cash and see a bit of centerville. Cute place. Our next train was to Lyon. We have actually been to Lyon Before with our friend Antonio, from Madrid in January. Much warmer now though! The train ride from Amsterdam to Paris was pretty posh. We got served breakfast and lunch/Snack just like on the plane. And free beverages. We did have to Pay a 1st class reservation fee to use the high speed train though. That is why we are taking slower(Because they Stop more) City trains. We should be in Avigon Before 10 PM. We saw most of Northern, central, and Southern countryside from the window of the train today.
Once in Avigion at 9:45p we hiked the 2 klics to our campsite and setup camp. It’s city camping, but it's reasonably quiet and under 9€ per night. So we were both Happy with that. We were both exausted after traveling from 5:30A.

3/24/05

We woke up and took care of our camping debt. Then we pack up and head into town at about 3. The first place we go is the train station to get reservations, Once there, we find out that we cant go on the train because at this point, it is already booked up. The soonest that we can get on a train to paris is tomorrow morning at 6:35 a and that is the only train available until after the weekend. So we pay the reservation and pickup some more food for dinner at the campground.

3\23\05

This morning, when we went to pay for the campsite, we discovered that our debit card did not work at all. Not even for purchaces. So we Made mac and cheese for breakfast(thanks mom and dad) in our hotpot and then walked into Amsterdam to contact our bank via internet. It turns out that we got a message from our bank that there have been several fradulent purchaces in the Netherlands made with visa so all purchaces in the neitherlands have been suspended without notice. Great! So I say "fine, lets just go to the neitherlands to get some cash so we can pay for camping and go" So that is exactly what we did. It is only a 2 hour train ride to Antzerp, not bad. And then 2 hours back. We work hard for our already earned money hehe!
The weather everywhere we have been so far in belgum and holland is decidedly much nicer than when we were here in november.

3/22/05

We awoke to the sight of a grey donkey and a brown horse eating grass not so far from our tent : They were so cute. We had to catch a bus to get back into namur: We packed up our gear and then hiked the 1KM to the bus stop. Once in Namur we procured vittles and drink (waffles and beer) and got onto a train to liege. Fro, liege we went to Maastricht; holland: Maaastricht; for how big of a city it actually is, is not highly populated or busy: There is obivously a lot of money there: Everyone drove a big; nice car/SUV; which is unusual for Holland, especally: Once there we realized we were short on cash: Problem, our ATM card was not working in any of the ATM Machines So we try to find an internet cafe to check our accounts and find places to stay outside of Maastricht(to expencive or all booked) No luck. It was around-pm when all this came to light and just about everything shuts down at 6 pm sharp. So we walk back and forth on the ,ain road in Maastcht searching for internet until 8 PM finally we find an open intent place: Unfortunately no campgrounds are open around most places in holland unitl april 1st, we were a little early for that. Internetting also didn’t help our catch situation—still waiting to be sloved. Eventually we decided to go to amsterdam to camp for the night and hopefully contact my friend carine in frace to go to paris from Amserdam tomorrow. We were lucky because the train conductor let us ride the train without having the train pass valitated. And we were also lucky because once we got into amserdam we only had 3€ left and so the bus driver let one of us ride for free.

3/21/05

We got up at 7:30 a and packed and showered. The bust to the airport came around 9:30 a. We got to the airport with plunty of time to spare. We were a bit afraid we would have trouble checking our bags this time because ryanair had a pretty strict weight limit policy on baggage. But somehow we got away with it!
The flight before ours was sent off late because 7 passengers showed up very late. The switched gates at the last minute so weveryone, including us, that had stood in line for a seat together were almost screwed because everyone at the very back on the line was now at the front at the newly announced gate. Somehow we ended up with a seat together YAY!
The flight was fairly short 1.5 hours to charleroi, Belgium. We got these combo bus/train tickets for Belgium for onoy 10 euro. We took the bus into downtown charleroi trainstaion and took a city train to Namur, Belguium. Namur was bigger then I was expecting but still was quaint and had some old world charm. We went to the visitors information office and quickly found out that the only hostael in namur was completlely full. Strike 1 Then we had them call the closest camping grounds in tNamur. Closed until mar 28! strike 2 So this nice guy, Andre3 that wes helping us called his friend Phillippe who works for one of the local sites. He agreed to meet us and take us to the campsite that was open in the area, in nearby malonne(4k ouside namur). Se we got to meet Phillippe at the other info place in Namur at 5:30 p. He didnt show and didnt show around 5:50 we discuss the possibility of him not showing up at all and plan to return to the train station to go to liege or Maastricht in Holland. Just then Phillipe drove up in this little truck! hooray for Phillipe! He agreed to take us to the camping ground, gear and all. So we got some groceries and met back up with Phillippe at 7 then went to the camp ground. The weather in Namur was fabulious! warm and sunny and dry. Camping again was a real pleasure. The people who run the campground in Malonne are quite nice. We were greeted by 2 huge dogs, but they turned out to be quite nice. We setup our tent and said goodbye to phillippe and gave him much thanks :) We made sandwiches for dinner, 1st real food that we had had all day. Then we turnd in shortly because we had travelled much that day.

3/20/05

Today we left Killarney Youth Hostel to start our travels again. I didn't feel sad until we left the room we had been staying in for the past month and a half. I knew then that we would have to say goodbye toall thenew friends we had made. Caleb took our bags downstairs. First I said goodbye to Lucrece. She was so kind and gave us money for cab to town so we didn't have to haul all our stuff to Killarney Bus station on our backs. What a sweetie. I started to cry ands so did she and we hugged for a long time. She has been a truly great friend to Caleb and I while we wee in Killarney. Next we said goodbye to Cedric and Gaelle. The tears started again on both sides. They are really good friends and great people . We will miss them all, those frenchies :). As we got into the taxi we said goodbye to our tempoary family and got into todwtown killarney. Our bus left for limerick shortly thereafter. We got to see a bit more of limerick this time. It is not "hell" as the gentleman had told us before on our 1st trip to limerick. It is actually a pretty nice looking city. From limerick we took a bus to shannon town. There are no hostels in Shannon and it was pouring rain and cold wo we started looking for a cheap b&B. The first one was full, the second was out of our price range and when we told the proprietor that, he simply showed us the door and made no suggestions. So we walked back the way we had come on the bus and found a couple more b&Bs The next one we stopped at us origonally quoted us 52euro bor bot of us and breakfast for one night. Caleb said again, thats more then we were planning on spending. As asked if the would consider less without breakfast and they said 40 for both of us so we took it. THe people were very nice and so was the house and the room that we stayed in. They put out hot tea and 2 kinds of bread for us to welcom us. The bread was wonderful! We had a tv with cable in our room. We got to watch myth busters and ER. We were just happy to be out of the rain and have a hot shower before our plane trip tomorrow. We had mac and cheese in our hotpot for dinner.

3/17/05 Happy St. Patricks day!

(caleb)
Today we had to work for a couple of hours, but once we were done we went and walked at the blue pool. It was a quiet little spot in the woods. It looks like it is quite old as there are several old stone walls in the woods and lots of yew trees. From there we ate lunch at a pub near the woods. It was called Molly Darcy's. It seems like the more places we eat here, the better that the food gets. We then decided to see some of the St. Patricks day parade. It was cute, there... to be continuted...

3/16/05

(caleb)
Today is the day we visit the most famous of all of irlands sights, you guessed it the blarney castle. On the way we stopped at a toy solder shop. It was really intresting to see how they make the little guys. Anyway, blarney castle is quite a site, the several story tall castle complete with a scary dungen and the one and only blarney stone. Dad and I kissed it but Mom and Angie passed. Mom had a cold and she was scared of giving it to people, Angie was scared of getting a cold from other people. It wasnt as scary as I thought that it would be because they put bars for you to hold onto and somone holds you while you lean over. Also there is a couple of metal bars that go underneath so that you canot fall out of the castle. I was a little disapointed but I guess that I can understand why, if you actually fell for some reason I dont think that you would have much of a chance because you would probebly land on your head. I am not sure how much research they put into blarney, there was one room that they called the kitchen, but we all thought that it was probebly the tolilet because there would have been to much venelation for it to be a giant fireplace. Also it was most of the way up the castle and one would think that the kitchen would have been on the bottom floor.
In the back garden part of the castle there are a couple of things that they name without discriptions. There is the circle(???) it is a circle of green(just like every other rock in ireland) rocks. There is a stone(named I guess because it looks like a whitch) A sacrifice alter(I didnt see any resemblance) some wishing stairs, and a es hut. Most of the things dont look near as old as the castle we figured that they were probebly only a couple of hundred years at best. In conclusion most of the things that you find at blarney castle are just that.... blarney.

From there we went to cork, we had lunch at a fru fru place called lulu's Underneith the sign it says A gastronomic experence. I guess I wouldnt know because the last few days for me has been one. ;)
We went back to kalarney and had dinner at a nice restraunt, we walked into the bar and the tv was on loud so we went upstairs. Unfortunatly the menu was different but the watress was nice enough to offer the items on the downstairs menu. I had an irish burger, that is a burger that is basicly a giant ball with onions and spices in it.

3/15/05

(caleb)
Today we really packed it in. We started our day by going to ross castle. Then Muckross House, from there we walked to Muchross abby and back. Then it was onto Tork waterfall and then the gap of dunloe. We paused for lunch at kate kearney's cottage, it was a cute little place and they had quite a nice fire going. I think that they had one of the only wood fires that I have seen since we have been here.
After lunch we procedded to the dingle peninsula. It is similar in some ways to the ring of kerry, but it is also quite unique in its own right. There are plunty of artifacts to see and plunty of touristy things to see. We didnt go see the dolphin. In fact, by the time we got out to the end of the peninsula it was getting dark so we started heading back. We decided to take the longer, but faster(or so we thought) route north to tralee. The road on the small map that we had looked like a main road, but once we got into it it turned out to be worse then the one that we came in on. By worse I mean nice and lumpy. We decided to cut over to the inch beach but we turned to soon and ended up on a logging road. It was a little spookey but fun, in the intrest of saftey we decided to go back to the main road and continue the way home. For dinner we had a nice curry rice noodle dish with chicken and leek.

3/14/05

(caleb) Today we got in the car early and began seeing the Kerry Co. sites. We decided to do the ring of kerry. We saw some amazing castle ruins and an old fort close to cahersiveen and some great ocean views. It was nice having a car to ride in so that we could actually cover some ground. It rained all day except for when we stopped for lunch in portmagee, but that didnt bother us to much. It seemed like quite a bit was closed for the season, but we did manage to get our strength back at a pub in sneem. It was dark by the time we got into town, we decided to eat at the grainery for dinner. It was quite nice and a good value too. :) We were expecting somthing a little more traditional but I think besides the modern music it had a fine atmosphere.

3/12-13/2005

We worked both days. We were preparing for Caleb's parents, Deb and Brad, to come for a 5 day long visit. The assistant manager at the hostel, Dave, was nice enough to offer free accomodation to them during their visit as part of our payment for working at the hostel. So we prepared their room ahead of time to make them feel welcome. They arrived around 5:30pm on the 13th from London. They flew into Kerry airport (about 20 minutes from Killarney hostel) and rented a car from there. When they got to the hostel we were soo happy to see them! It was great to see someone from home:) They were pretty hungry from their day of travel so we went into killarney to get a bite to eat. We went to Danny Mann's pub and restaurant. Good eats! Caleb and I hadn't eaten out in a restaurant since the first two weeks here in Europe so it was quite a luxury for us!!! Then we went to Courtneys pub for a couple of pints of proper Irish beer for Caleb and his dad. Deb and Brad were quite weary from their day of travel so we didn't stay for the music at the pub.

3/11/05

Low key day. Worked again and then went into town for internet at the Public Library. We had french chocolates that Lucrece had brought for us from France. MMmmmmmm so very good. We are supposed to have some french wine and goodies tonight with Lucrece and maybe Gaelle and Cedric, the other frenchies working at the hostel:) We may try to have a small bonfire behind the hostel tonight. We shall see. Caleb's parents called again today to firm up their travel plans. Can't wait to see them on Sunday! We will get like 3 days off in a row!!! Much to see.

3/10/05

(Ang) Back to work today. First we cleaned then we weeded the small garden in the front of the hostel. A bigger task than we imagined. We didn't even get to finish the whole thing. Irish gardens have lots of stones in them so it is hard to dig around. Our french friend, Lucrece, came back from her holiday in France so we were happy about that. Caleb's parents called to update us on their itinerary for their upcoming trip to Ireland to hang with us. They will have a rental car so we will be able to see many areas previously not accessible to us because of money and distance. We are very excited for them to get here! We went for a short walk on the forest trail behind the hostel because it was a warm and sunny day. You don't get those two factors in Irish weather very often so we thought we better get outside for awhile. I brought and fed a carrot to the horse we have made friends with just off the forest trail. At first she wouldn't come near us because the hostel dog, Kerry, came with us on the walk, and she is frightened of Kerry. I had to climb into the pasture to give her the carrot she was so scared. We watched "The Village" again today. Caleb and I really liked the film unlike most other people who have seen it. There were two American college s staying at the hostel for a couple of days. They are from Arkansas but studying in London right now. We had a long conversation about American politics and society. Happily they are well informed and quite open minded. Liberals you might say:) Apparently their school is like a small bubble of open mindedness in Arkansas. It gives me hope for the future of America if you can find such views even in Arkansas.

3/9/05

We had pancakes for breakfast. We were out of butter so we used olive oil instead and the pancakes were much lighter and yummier. I'll try to keep the excitement to a minimum here hehe. We got a ride into town to do internet at the library. Luckily the computers were back up. yay We walked back home through the National Park. We watched some movies.

3/8/05

(caleb)Today we worked outside, it was a nice change. We started weeding the garden and then I started picking up garbage. In the end I ended up with close to 100 pounds. This is a real problem in ireland. Somtimes you cant see it right away because I think that they clean up the real touristy areas and thank goodness that most people have enough respect for the national park. But along roadsides especally and in some remote places along the road for some reason people just dump their rubbish. Some people say that it is the new laws for garbage. I think that they are starting to charge by weight so instead of paying to get rid of their garbage, people just take it out and dump it. This is wrong on so many levels because the stuff that they are dumping not only looks bad but it is non-biodegradeable. stuff like plastic bottles and baby diapers among other things. I know that this isnt a problem that is local to ireland but it seems like it is a new problem here. I know that I was ranting about rome being really dirty but that dosent really matter because it is a city and it is already polluted. Here people are spoiling the natural beauty by dumping tons of garbage wherever. Maby it is just growing pains for a new consumer socity, but people are going to have to start taking some personal responsibility otherwise there will be some serous consequences. It makes me sad and I dont enjoy picking it up, but I do enjoy making the property look better. I wish I could pick it all up out of the woods, but I would need a dump truck and a team of people. I just do what I can and hope that people will follow my example. Ok, thats enough rant for now :)

Then we walked to the library and it turned out that the computers where down, bummer. We then went shopping and walked back home. We enjoyed tuna and corn sandwiches with pea salad for dinner.

3/7/04

We had the day off and the sun was shining so we knew that it would be blasphemous not to get out and do some hiking. The temp outside was much warmer today. We chose o'sulivans cascade and the nearby mountians and forest as our destination. We began our trekk there on the main road that goes to Killarney and Kilorglin. Just at we got started out we ran into the old drunk irish man, Matthew that gave us a ride to our hostel on Jan 22. What a carracter! We wasnt drunk today though. He was full of stories and odd facts about ireland and St. Patricks day though. That somes to be a common trait in old Irishmen. He gabbed our ear off for a good 20 minutes and then excused himself for the 100th time to run off to the post office to send a st. pats day card(green of course) to his family living in the US HAHA. We carried on with our walk to O'Sullivans's cascade within the Killarney National park. It is really wonderful that they protect all of this virgin forest land. It would probebly be leveled for timber and developed into a strip mall and apartments by now if it were in the US. God Bless Ireland. O'Sullivand cascade was very pretty and calming. We took a break and Caleb had lunch. We walked the whole path up into the mountians and then back the way we had come in on. There was a small sheep farm(sheep are everywhere around these parts) The people who live there have this tiny little, unbelievable cute dog that was uper snuggly. The farmer came out and spoke with caleb while I petted this sweet dog. The guy was quite nice and actually had been to Wisconsin before. We walked all the way back to the hostel. We stopped to give some treats to a hosres we have made friends with down the road from the hostel. As soon as she sees us she gallops right over to say hi. It is so sweet.

3/6/05

Happy Irish Mother's Day! After working we decided that we wanted to see the Ogham Stones near the Gap of Dunloe. We left the hostel around 4pm So we set out through the woods once off the main road to Kilorglin. It was a beautiful day. We ended up walking along the beach of Lough Leane. The sun at that time is a golden hue and makes everything on the lake and surrounding it look like it is glowing. So gorgeous. I don't actually know if it qualifites as a beach since the rocks are big and there is thick mud in places. But there is some sand. The beach soon turned into a classic Irish forest with green moss covered trees and rocks. We followed the lake until it cmae to a river. At this point we weren't sure whether we wanted to turn around and head back the same way we came, or continue onto the Ogham stones. It had taken us much longer than we thought it would to get to that point and we only had about an hour or so of daylight left. We didn't want to be trekking through unfamiliar woods at night. We decided to push on to the stones. Just then we saw a mamma deer and her fawn run from us on the lake edge water. very cool. Once walking by the river we saw two swans swimming serenly by. This part of the woods and river reminded us of the Eel River and surrounding woods in Indiana. We arrived in front of the stones after a long walk. The Ogham stones are large rocks that have survived from the 5th century. They display the earliest form of Celtic writing. They have lines or notches of varying quantity and size and position to represent letters. We took some pics and started to head home cuz it was getting dark very quickly. On the main road in Beaufort village we caught a ride back to the hostel from 4 drunk polish guys who had trekked through the Gap of Dunloe with some Irish coffee to "keep themselves warm". The driver said "No drink...no drive" and then the whole car laughed. Luckily we made it home with no incident. We have gotten a few rides with people that were loaded here in Ireland...I see a trend. It's not funny really I guess, but at the time..

3/5/05

Today was a sad day. My (ang) mom called me today and told me that my close friend and the woman that I worked with for 3 1/2 years before moving to Indiana died suddenly in a car crash on the Beltline in Madison. It is crazy because she had survived a car once before. I wrote this for her funeral:
I was so blessed to be a part of Debra's daily life for 3 1/2 years as her friend and personal life assistant. I remember sharing many fun activities and great experiences with Deb that enriched both our lives. Deb loved to be active and to try new things so we took several classes including belly dancing, a couple ceramics and photography courses, 2 Madison Arboretum nature trekks and one of Deb's favorite things, a sewing class. In fact, it was Deb tht taught me how to sew on a sewing machine. She was the most patient teacher I have ever had:) Debra welcomed the opportunity to help others. She always put others needs before her own. Deb and I volunteered together at the East Madison Monona Coalition for the Aging where her talents in this area were put to good use. She often said that this volunteer experience was something she really valued and enjoyed. Debra was a fantastic artist and quite crafty. Just about everytime I came over to her house she was would have a new craft project for us to work on together. Deb and I shared a love for laughing and being entirely too silly. My favorite memories with Deb are the times we would sit around and each other up. Her beautiful smile and bright eyes always cheered me up on cloudy days:) I learned many things from my friendship with Deb. The most important of these things were true patience, compassion and generosity. She displayed these qualities on a daily basis. I will be forever grateful for the time I was blessed to share with Deb. She was an Angel to me. I loved her deeply and will miss her presence in my life more than I can say. I was lucky to call her my friend.

Don't ever take those you care about in your life for granted. You never know if they will be around tomorrow.

3/4/05

(caleb)
The big group is leaving today, its a good thing because some of the people like to leave the kitchen a mess. I suppose its unavoidable when you have so many people. Dont get me wrong, I like some of the people in the group, but there are a couple that are really annoying.
We did our usual morning thing and then caught a ride into town from a irish guy. He told us that he was going to drop us off by the bus station but he ended up dropping us off way past the tesco. It took us 20 minutes to backtrack back to the library. On the way it started to rain...

3/3/05

(caleb)
Today was the Ireland lottery drawing...
No we didnt win :(
Today the hostel got rid of those crappy computers that charge 1€ for 10 minutes. Good riddence, anytime that I was in the living room I told people not to waste their money on those things. We spent the day carrying on about our normal duties. I carried bog turf and we got off work a little early. We got a ride into town with a lady that had two kids in the back. She gave us a ride because the kids were laughing and pointing at us hitchhikeing. It was nice because she gave us a ride directly to the library because thats where she was going.
We decided to do some shopping at the big tesco because we thought that it might be cheaper and I thought that there would be a wider beer selection. Well we were wrong about both of those things. The only thing that we gained by shopping there is a longer walk with a heavy backpack. There was a kid packing groceries as a fundraiser, because Angie is so kind she let him do it. It doesnt take rocket science to pack a bag, but he mananged to stack the heavy cans on the bread and the pepper. grrr... needless to say we didnt tip him.
When we got to the golf course, we discovered that the path was closed because of construction so we ended up having to walk by the road.
We had homade ham and pinapple pizza for supper it was mmmm good.

3/2/05

(caleb)
After work we took a nice nap. Ohh so nice. It feels to take a nap in the middle of the day but I suppose it is less of a waste of time then watching tv.
We played cards in the evening and ended up keeping the kids busy.

3/1/05

(caleb)
My parents are coming in the middle of the month. We are very excited to see them. I am having them bring macroni and cheese with them because thats somthing that you just cannot find in europe.
We bought a lotto ticket today, maby we can fund the rest of our trip(hahaha)