Friday, March 29, 2013

Erin go Bragh

Folks, lately, I have been working like a dog, like a dog! It has been insane. Short nights and long days. It really needs to be the other way around. But that's a topic for another day. Right now I want to tell you all about the friendliest people I have EVER met ......The Irish! Oh my, they are so insanely nice. I had the chance a few weeks ago before the slave days started to go to Ireland for the first time. From the moment the people stepped foot on the plane to the moment I stepped off the plane back in NYC I was enchanted by the Irish. Everyone was jolly, had a nice word to say (in that incredibly wonderful accent they have) and wanted to be extremely helpful. I really wish I had had more than 24 short hours there.

In the airport.
 This year Ireland is having a year long celebration celebrating, itself! It's inviting anyone who has Irish roots to come "home" and celebrate them. I wish I had Irish roots.
Hotel Lobby

Come and take your high tea here.













The hotel that we stay at is the Shelbourne. One of the oldest, nicest hotels in Dublin. Famous people have stayed and still stay there. Again, the people are so super nice. When I told the lady at the front desk that it was my first time in Ireland, she whipped out a map and started showing me everything I should do and see. As I explored the hotel everyone I saw, at the spa, the gym, the restaurant, they all offered to give me a tour. So nice! 
I really thought this was a lovely photo.

Dublin Coddle



































































 I wanted to get some authentic Irish food so I went to a place recommended by the sweet front desk gal, The Hairy Lemon. Weird name, good food. I have a Dublin Coddle. As you can see it's a type of stew. It was very tasty, and a huge portion. I couldn't eat it all. It had potatoes, carrots, celery, sausage, broth and spices. Simple, but yummy.










Walking around Dublin I found it to remind me a lot of Liverpool. I guess they are only separated by a small stretch of water after all. It had a old, industrially feel to it. Add to it the fog and nice people and you get a homey kind of feel. 
Trinity College

 I visited Trinity College, one of the oldest in Europe. I took a peak at the book of Kells, a Latin translation of the Bible. It was nothing special, but the old library that you get to see after was super cool. Some of the books in there looked hundreds of years old, and the spiral staircases were awesome.



Celebrating St. Patty's day week!



Looking forward to my next Irish visit!


Wednesday, March 20, 2013

NYC Living

I realized the other day that I had been posting about my trips a lot but not to much about our new home. In reality we havn't had a lot of time yet to just relax at home and explore. I worked most of the end of February after we moved in and then we went to visit my family in Tennessee for 5 days at the first of March and now I'm working a lot again. I'm looking forward to being home more soon and enjoying city life. Here are some photos of our home and neighborhood.

The Living Room, with the most awesome throw pillows ever.

Looking out from the hall.

Brandon's office.
Did pretty good making a functioning kitchen. Brandon's dad was awesome, he put up 4 shelves for us which are essential to our kitchen storage. 


Great for storage. I have a lot of kitchen gadgets.

Caffeine station, growler holder and fruit shelf.


No hall closet, so we had to go vertical.

Since square footage is rare in NYC you have to use your vertical space well. Don't miss my "gym" on the left side there. :-)

Tiny bedroom that kinda fits a queen size bed. That's Fred on the bed, he's my buddy. (Brandon's too, but don't tell him I said that.)

Our one and only closet. Again, note the use of vertical space. There's another shelf above that you can't see.

I took over the closet, poor Brandon got this dresser.

Having 2 bedroom doors is kinda fun.

Sky view from the bedroom!
Beachy bathroom. (We need some t.p.)
Aloha!

Famous "hot doggery" nearby for only $2.50

72nd and Amsterdam

Broadway and Amsterdam intersection.

Best grocery store around.

The line ALWAYS looks like this, see it wrapped around that pole with the statue of liberty poster? But it moves fast.

Amazing bakery that sell softball size cookies. Thank goodness we live on the 3rd floor so I can work off some of those calories.
See? Amazing.

Typical street.



Very famous and old tea shop.


Not so "city that never sleeps" at 3:30 in the morning.
And of course, this is only a block away.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Be Safe!

Do you know a lot about Colombia? I clearly don't as I have been spelling it Columbia for, well, forever. That's pretty embarrassing. Thanks Wikipedia for the help. Besides that I really only know that it has been a dangerous place for many years. And they had drug smuggling going on. A friend of mine back in Seattle spent a lot of time in Columbia and only had great things to say about it. I never got the feeling that she felt in danger there. I had heard in the news that there were peace talks in Cuba between the rebels and the government that had went very well and that violence has gone way down. So when I went to Bogota a few weeks ago I really didn't feel like I should feel unsafe there. Cautious, yes, but unsafe no. Apparently, according to everyone else, except my friend in Seattle, I was wrong.
From JFK we fly a 3 day trip to Bogota where we get in to the hotel at about 11pm and then leave the next night on a red eye back home. So you have about 24 hours to explore the area. I had done some research on Trip Advisor on things to do in Bogota, and decided that I was going to do a bike tour, I love bike tours, of the historic area. As it turned out our hotel was quite a ways away from the historic area/downtown. We use to stay closer till some people got robbed and then they moved us to the boonies for safety reasons. So the morning rolled around and I was up eating our free hotel breakfast planning my day. I had been told there was a nice lookout on the mountain where you can see all of the city so I thought I'd do that first and then catch the afternoon bike tour. Well, that plan began to fall apart very fast. First, my debit card didn't work in the ATM. I have never in any of my travels have a debit card that didn't work. I tried two different banks, no luck. I went back to my room and got my other, emergency bank card and tried again, no luck. Finally at the 4th ATM my card worked. By this time I was getting a late start. I stopped at the front desk to ask about getting to the lookout and to downtown. The front desk worker looked at me a little oddly and asked, "You are going alone?" "Yes, why?" "It can be a little dangerous. Be safe," he told me. He got out a map and pointed stuff out. The overlook was only a little ways to the downtown area that I wanted to see so I asked if I could just walk. He looked at me as if I had said, "Would it be ok if I murdered your mother?" "You do not walk!" He told me in a very stern voice. I felt like a child who had been reprimanded by their dad. He looked back down at the map, thought for a moment, looked back and me and repeated it again, "Do not walk!" as if I had been thinking about not following his advice. Taking my chances I asked him why. Horrified, as if I was also going to kill grandma, he told me it was not safe to walk alone. No problem, I thought to myself, I won't walk there.
  Next, I asked him what I could see in downtown. Again he looked at me sternly and said, "Be safe. Downtown is dangerous." So now by this point I was getting a little paranoid, was I going to make it back to the hotel in one piece? I'm no stranger to unsafe places, I even witnessed a back woods drug deal in the middle of nowhere Honduras. But I was getting worried about Colombia. I sucked it up, put on my shabbiest clothes, took off any make up, left on jewelery on and went out. My taxi (I got the horrified look again when I asked about the bus) to the outlook was very pleasant. I was even able to coordinate with the driver that I wanted to be picked up later.
Going up, literally.


I'd been told that I need not feel unsafe at the outlook. A lot
of tourists go there and it is probably the only "safe" place in
Bogota. But I was still very cautious. How beautiful it was!
I didn't realize that Bogota was at such a high elevation, but
it is in the mountains. The cable car ride up to the top was straight up! 
Church at the top.
 Once at the top though it was a breathtaking sight. There was a church up there, which I wasn't expecting. And behind it all you can see are mountains.


On one of the mountains there is a statue
Jesus statue.
of Jesus, sort of like the one on
the mountain over looking Rio. 


Looking on the other side.
 The views were so beautiful and the weather that day great for sightseeing.

Yours truly.

Lots of forest. 

Pretty rugged.

After the mountain I took yet another taxi into downtown, where I was on guard at all times.  I have very few photos because the hotel guy freaked me out so bad that I hardly wanted to stop walking long enough to look at something, let along get out a camera and look like a tourist! I was able to see some fun things like this super cool red and white church, Plaza de Bolivar and the president's house. My adventure with the ATM and time at the outlook made me miss the bike tour. I'll have to try that one next time.



Iglesia del Carmen
Plaza de Bolivar, aka The Birds 2

Very old cathedral in Plaza de Bolivar

President's house, guarded up!

Have you been to Bogota? What do you recommend? Did you feel unsafe?

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Jolly Ol' London

Museum of Natural History
Ah London, I just keep liking it more and more. I still don't know what it is. Brandon's cousin was telling me that she likes how you can be standing on the street next to a building that is 800 years old and also a building that was built yesterday. Maybe that's what I like too? I don't know, but either way, I LOVE London! On my first trip earlier in February I took a 6 mile walk. That's kinda far. I just started walking from the hotel to see what I could see of the "big" sights.


The hotel we stay at is in Kensington which seems to be a very
cute, fun neighborhood. There are a few subway stops nearby
which make getting around very easy. However, I found out
Kensington Station
after my walk, that the tube (aka, subway) is really expensive. For a one way ticket by itself is almost seven
US dollars! Now that I've learned a thing or two I know
I could have only paid about $3 USD had I gotten an Oyster Card. We live and we learn.

 
Yummy Sweet's Shoppe



 On my walk, one of the first spots I passed was the Museum of Natural History which looked like a building
straight out of Harry Potter. As in, if Harry had been seen going to wizarding college, this is the building they would have used. I haven't visited yet, but it is free to do so! Another day, as stopping would have interrupted my walk. I continued on. I passed by many delicious looking store fronts that were beckoning me to come in try a little pastry, but I resisted and walked on. I passed by Harrod's, the famous London department store and still, I walked on.
Harrod's Department Store



 I kept on walking until I reached Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace.
Apparently, you can take a tour of the palace, but only in August and September,  I guess when the Queen is away on holiday. So, I walked on,
(with The Allman Brother's Ramblin' Man in my head.)

Buckingham Palace






 
I kept on walking along the park, via The Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Walk. :-( My next adventure was to see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, which always makes me think of this song and this clip. Of course, like everything else on my walk, the abbey had just closed for the day. So what did I do? I walked on.
Self Explanatory


Dr. Who?



Big Ben


Parliament Building
Parliament Building


Westminster Abbey
 Then it was off for more walking. (You're shocked, I know.) By this point I had already walked so far I thought why not keep on walking. I could see the London Eye, aka ferris wheel, in the distance so I thought I'd check it out and see how much it was to go up. To much it turns out, so, I walked on.
River Thames and London Eye

Not a beach sunset, but still nice.
 By this point the sun was starting to set and I was on the river and it was Friday night. That all adds up to lots of people out walking around. I was also starved by this point and ducked in to a yummy little cafe to chow down some soup and cookies, I mean biscuits, before, yep, walking on.



St. Paul's Cathedral
I decided, like Forrest Gump, that since I'd came that far already I might as well go a little farther so, I walked on. I got stunning views of the river side banks as the sun set. I saw St. Paul's cathedral from a distance, fun little river side pubs, museums, people, lights, restaurants, so many things. Walking along the river was the highlight of the walk. I could not have timed it any better if I had tried.

Cute, little riverside pub





 Then, being a HUGE Shakespeare fan, I was super excited to stumble upon the Globe Theater! It was, of course, also closed. But according to the signs out front it has been modeled in the way they 'think' it was in Shakespeare's day. They do performance there and you can get tickets for only 5 pounds! That's on the top of the to do list for this summer.


Shakespeare's Globe Theater

 The I came upon on one of the most familiar landmarks in London.
It is also the most identified, The Tower Bridge. Many people mistakenly think this is the London Bridge. It isn't. The London Bridge is just a plain jane bridge. The Tower Bridge is the 'pretty' one you see on all the souvenir stuff. Guess what? Yep, also closed.
No worries, I kept walking.
Tower Bridge
Up Close and Personal
 Across the bridge, the Tower Bridge that is, is The Tower of London.
Where the crown jewels rest. Where Anne Boleyn lost her head. Where many a royal were imprisoned, many for the rest of their lives. Closed as well. *Sigh* Also on the top of the to do list though. By this time I was thoroughly exhausted and ready for bed. I hoped onto the $7USD tube and went straight back to the hotel into bed, dreaming of my next trip to London.

Tower of London

Tower of London

 And luck me, returned to this when I got home.
A surprise from my awesome sweetie when I got home.

Have you been to London before? What do you recommend doing? Let me know in the comments below!