Amy’s Gripping Commentary

Maybe someday I’ll catch up! Work is kicking my butt and even when I’m not too tired to post on the blog, my arm wears out with typing all day at work. I’ve had a lot of long days lately and I’m starting to look forward to the next trip.

Back to Iceland, a few Tuesdays ago:

1. Giant marshmallow farm!
2. Just driving down the road, we saw several waterfalls along the volcanic foothills
3-4. There might be a town every hour or two, which might have a restaurant, but mostly the eating option was a gas station grill. Our meal here–two soups, bread, and fries–was about $20 and didn’t include drinks.
5. Expanses of lava stretching to the sea
6. First glimpse of the glacier we would be climbing later
7. Where mud meets ice
8-12 David convinced me to go ice climbing. You basically kick your spiked boots (crampons over the sturdy rented boots) into the wall and hammer an ice axe in from each hand, pulling yourself up and standing up as you go. A shower of ice chunks is constantly falling (note the pieces all around the closeup of our feet). I made it to the top all three times, but it was hard to grip the ice axes by the end. There was quite a bit of ash in the ice and we came back pretty dirty. I also managed to totally wipe out on the walk back and scraped up my knees. I must have caught my crampons in my pants or boot laces.

Yes, we’ve been on vacation! Before we made it to Iceland a week ago, we had an all-day layover in London (hard to get to Iceland from Ireland), so off we went from Gatwick to explore the city a bit: lunch at Wagamama because it sounded good, then wandering through Covent Garden to a visit at the London Transport Museum. It was interesting but I wouldn’t call it top of the heap for museums. I’ve been to the bigger attractions so we decided to try something new.

We found visiting the outdoor-gear shops (big North Face-type stores) in one particular block a good way to pass time, and we managed not to spend money. We did see a manufactured ice-climbing wall, but I had no idea we’d be doing it for real in a few days!

1. For Mom, sewing machine display at the airport
2. Gate 13. This was after David realized he flew on Friday the 13th and we had been talking about the 13 y.o. boy who was struck by lightning at 13:13 on that Friday the 13th.
3-4. Our very clean, simple, Scandinavian-looking hotel the first night. All the beds are twins to be pushed together if you book a double, apparently, and this was the case in 4/5 places that week.
5. Outside the Keflavik hotel, Paddy’s Irish Pub was the nearest business.
6. Bónus is a grocery chain. I think the piggy’s left eye needs some design work. Thank goodness we got a few groceries because we couldn’t afford to eat out in the expensive restaurants (if you could find one).
7. Gullfoss (Golden Falls). Look closely for the rainbow
8-11. Geysers, including the one named Geysir which became the name of all others in the world. That’s the one I found hot! Strokkur erupted several times while we were there but the bigger Geysir is less frequent.
12. Our silly little rental car (big enough to pick up hitchhikers from Sweden and Czech Republic, though!) was not suited for the kinds of roads the many safari-like vehicles can take. If you note the rear lights, you’ll see the reverse light is only on the right, while the left has a rear fog light in red!
13. For Mom: wristies for sale! I prefer the non-thumb type.
14. More on the types of roads. The ones with an F before the number require 4wd… they get worse from there. We did not go in the highlands at all as a result.
15-19. Þingvellir National Park, where government was established in 930 AD and cracks in the earth show continental drift. #17 shows a pool where unfaithful women were drowned. Apparently men’s crimes were punished by stake burning.
20. I like the funny hat on the 5000 krónur lady. The coins all have fish on them.
21. An expensive meal in an expensive hotel, but at least this one lived up to the reputation, price, and presentation.
22. Our ranch-like hotel. Iceland gets the occasional polar bear who floats or swims in from Greenland.

Just a quick note to report we are still alive and the dogs are finally pooping in a recognizable manner. Casper’s age is starting to catch up to her. She’s having a hard time getting up from the floor so we help lift her rear, and David re-suggested the Collie Trolley (mostly because it sounds funny, but it started when she was falling down the basement stairs at the Indy house). She still likes to wrestle with Walter and seems happy, but it’s hard to see her get old and not be able to take her on walks into town, let alone up the cliffs Walter gets to see. I guess she never has been much of an explorer so she’s probably happy being at home anyway.

I’m working on finding a pet sitter so we can plan our adventures. The wish list (outside Ireland and Northern Ireland) includes:
-Iceland (we always intended to go there even before there was a job in Europe or a volcanic eruption)
-Glasgow (David has friends there)
-Prague (everyone says this is fabulous)
-Amsterdam
-Sweden
-Belgium
-Switzerland
-Germany somewhere
-Krakow
-Paris because I figure I should
-Croatia
-Turkey
-Tenerife

That ought to keep us busy. I figure we’ll go to as many as we can afford and make time for, plus we’ll have to see how much we hate each other after the first few trips! I feel like I’ve gotten Italy, Spain, and the UK mostly out of the way for this round.

I rode my bike to work today for the first time here. It’s less than five miles but dang the hills are hard. I’m a little worried about the way home! I need to tighten my rear brake and get in better shape as the first orders of business. I wonder how many car trips I have to replace with my bike to offset all the air travel we have planned…

I’ve developed a fascination with customs and border patrol shows, where people try to bring sausages into Australia and then argue for hours about paying a fine because they didn’t declare their booty. I’m hoping to glean some tips on what exactly makes for legal import, what paperwork you need to visit a given country, and what it is about immigration enforcement that gets people so riled up. It’s uniformly sad to raid, arrest, and deport a hard working person. I won’t say whether it’s good or bad for the country’s resources, just that if someone is willing to cling to the underside of a truck to sneak into a new place, the old place must be pretty bad indeed and I have sympathy. I find the American debate about illegal immigration particularly bizarre for being a nation of (mostly) immigrants. How long must one squat to make it legal? Ten years is not enough if you ask the lawmakers, but a couple hundred apparently takes care of it. A couple hundred years of history is but a blip over here, as well as in the grand scheme of who has the “right” to keep someone out because they got there first.

Meanwhile, Irish radio advertises Cuban vacations. The complete lack of info on Cuba in the U.S. leaves it a foggy, concrete, communist country of the 1960s in my mind… and apparently it’s a nice place to take a vacation if your country lets you go. When I was trying to book a flight through London from Spain after the ash cloud canceled the direct Irish flight, the agents had to consider what country’s passport I held to know if the UK would let me through. It’s bizarre to me that you can’t just go somewhere.

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In other news, my brother has jumped into the world of blogging and is posting his magazine articles as well. His writing appeals to a broader audience than my ranting (I realize you are only here to see me fall off a cliff like other tourists or to look at my dogs), so go on and visit at General Tomfoolery! Bookmarked in the sidebar as well. Also Arliss the cranky bunny has a new post up.

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From a day touring a bit of County Tipperary (and a smidge of Co. Waterford) with my stranded guest, Carlton, a few weeks ago, I give you a lot-easier-to-upload gallery of pictures:

The first four pics are from Cahir Castle, built in 1142, including a view of the town and some from inside the castle.

The next six pics are from the Rock of Cashel, which had earlier structures but most of the remaining ones are from the 12th and 13th centuries. Despite the scaffolding, this is a fascinating place and very well preserved/restored in many parts. The tour guide was quite good and the soaring walls and fresco remnants (I think they’re still called frescoes in Ireland) are worth a visit. The view on a sunny day is pretty too.

The last picture is from the Vee Gap area of the Knockmealdown Mountains, but either volcanic ash or a general haze kept the view a little dull. Carlton and I went on a fuel quest right about then and fortunately the GPS found us some just in time.

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This just in: David has just arrived! Our company driver picked him up at Shannon. I hope he isn’t mad that I didn’t get up at 3 a.m. to go get him and have to take a day off work! I will see him at lunch. He claimed his steak on the plane (good old business class!) was better than any he’d had at home and he felt sorry when he saw the folks in “steerage” when he got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. I pointed out we will be back in steerage soon enough, but this year we get to enjoy horizontal plane sleeping.

His account of the arrival at the house:

*going to the door*
Dogs: Who the F*** is thatOH it’s YOU!!!
*commence Velcro/shadow dogs and a lot of Walter jumping*

The dog situation still is not resolved. I’m trying to keep my mind off of it; recreated paperwork did not arrive today as expected. The !@#$ airline has no idea where the papers went after they left San Francisco. If we have to recreate it all again, it will be Wednesday before I see them. :’(

So, I will try to replay the last day in London:

Nicole and I made our semi-lazy way back into the city with another toasted cheese sandwich and our bags, which we were able to leave at the train station instead of lugging them around London. We found another vegetarian restaurant for lunch, Mildred’s:

We saw these shirts and I felt I had to take a picture of Arnold for my brother.

Then we wandered a bit and lounged at Piccadilly Circus with a drink.

Nicole’s flight was much earlier than mine, so we said our goodbyes at the train station and I went on to explore a few more hours. I went back near Buckingham and checked out Hyde Park, which has a boating pond, restaurants, cycling paths, several statues and memorials, and a whole lot of people enjoying the spring weather.

Achilles statue

Queen Elizabeth gates

North of Hyde Park is the Marble Arch (more pics at Flickr), and then this statue for which I couldn’t really find a lot of information. Hard to miss, though.

I managed to lose my subway card so I got another one and went up to Regent’s Park, where I had ice cream and wandered through the water fowl protected areas; apparently there’s a zoo and other things to do at the park as well, but my time was running short to explore much. After enjoying the spring flowers, I found myself in front of 221 Baker Street, and the Underground Station there, which took me back to get my bag at a different station, has little Sherlock Holmeses on the subway tiles.

So while I spent all afternoon in the nice outdoors, pictures of the park start to look the same, and I’ll end there. We had known the subway line back to the airport was closed for maintenance, so it took me something like two hours on other lines and buses to get to Heathrow, where my plane left early (and almost without me!). Who ever heard of a plane leaving early? Meanwhile Nicole’s flight had been delayed for hours and she was probably still there too! I made it to Cork in an hour and had Sunday to myself. And I discovered I lost my sunglasses too.

A couple pictures from near home:

Ringcurran Church is apparently not in use anymore, except perhaps a couple times per year

Scilly Walk takes a high path along the harbor, where two ruined forts are visible

I didn’t even know Return of the Ash Cloud was on until I called David tonight. My flight is canceled. Stuck in Spain. And I’m sure the dogs are canceled too.

I’m starting to wish I’d brought more than four days of clothing and a pair of Tevas.

And my camera battery died today! sigh

I’m in Spain for a long weekend. I’m exhausted and leaving very early to get in line for a big site, but I’ll leave you with these from today in Málaga and nearby:

Just after college, my first trip abroad (wait, I think I also drove to a Windsor casino from Detroit one night?) was to meet my friend Liz in London. It was a fabulous trip, and there is even evidence from my website in 1999! Holy crap.

My friend Nicole was staying near London a couple weeks ago on business, and she invited me to join her for a few days in the city. It’s barely more than an hour flight from Cork to London, so off I went to stay with her in this fancy hotel/spa place. There is secretly a newer, uglier part to this facility, though, so it wasn’t exactly resort-like for us–just comfortable.

While Nicole earned a living on Thursday, I took the Tube from Heathrow and explored London a bit on my own. The London Eye didn’t exist when I was there last, so I took an expensive trip in the giant Ferris wheel over the city. I booked online ahead of time, paying extra to skip the line. As Dad says, you can’t put a price on a good time, and that includes not wasting time when there are smarter ways to travel! I probably wouldn’t go on it again, but it’s one of those tourist things you should do once. After I got home, David told me he saw a show about how it was only designed to last five years and it’s already been ten, so maybe it’s not one of those tourist things you should do after all.

I wandered the shore of the Thames near the Eye and found a neat cafeteria at Southbank Centre with a great eggplant aubergine stew for a late lunch. The weather was gorgeous and I sat out on the terrace with hundreds of others who were enjoying a drink in the sunshine.

Later, I found Waterloo train station and bought a quick ticket for Camberley since the train was about to leave, and I wasn’t quite sure it was the right stop, but I knew it would get me close. The train ride was about an hour, I think (during which I giggled at every stop since they kept announcing the end of the line very clearly as Cockfosters, even funnier with the accent), and I found a taxi to get me to the hotel, beating Nicole there by about a half hour. We wandered into town for a tapas dinner and then a drink at a karaoke bar. The English singers weren’t very impressive; drunkenness is pretty universal.

We stumbled home and slept in without an alarm. The plan for this trip was to head into London and figure it out as we went! We armed ourselves with toasted cheese sandwiches for the train ride, picked up some maps, and went to the British Museum. I hadn’t been there before and wished we had more time. I didn’t even know the Rosetta Stone was there and missed it! The collection was pretty amazing, but I kept wondering about all the colonialism and plundering that probably gathered half of it.

I had gathered info on vegetarian restaurants from Happycow.net, which was not only a tasty move, but gave us places to find and therefore took us down streets that we wouldn’t have otherwise traveled. First up was an all-veg Thai/Chinese buffet with many choices, both hot and cold, fake meats and already-meatless dishes. I get overwhelmed when I can choose anything on the menu; it’s rare to have more than a pasta choice wherever I go. The excitement was doubled since Nicole was just as excited about the food choice as I was.

We wandered through daffodil-filled Green Park and had gelato across the street from Buckingham Palace. I was impressed by the number of transport cyclists in the park (and the number of clueless pedestrians who wandered right into the cycling paths). We remarked on how many people wore red shoes. I also lost and found my glasses, and then we happened upon the changing of the guard at the palace, which made us laugh because they were very serious about whatever was on that clipboard. We made up voiceovers to illustrate what was happening, but I’m afraid I don’t recall the soap opera now.

We wandered some more and planned a tour for later, but killed time first near Westminster Abbey. Most sightseeing places were closed by now.

After a pay-to-pee stop where I also picked up minty plastic chewable toothbrushes from a gumball machine in the loo, Nicole suggested stocking up for our multi-hour night bus tour of the city, which meant booze and snacks (the little bottle of Jack isn’t even in the picture!).

There were only two other passengers, who had taken the two front seats of the top of the double decker bus, but we took other seats up top and listened to the rather biased commentary as we rode around the city. It was nice to get a sense of what all was there (since we hadn’t visited in years) and it helped us find things the next day, too. The tour was a good lazy choice at a time when there wasn’t much else to do but eat or go to a show.

Time for another veg restaurant, this time in Soho! The street was hopping with bar and show-goers. We had fabulous food at Zilli Green, just in time for a guilt trip about my use of ice cubes before they closed.

I’ll wrap up this day with a poster I liked in the Subway:

As usual, more pics at Flickr