Fegersheim: Last Tourist Site to see

One of the strange things about living less than 500 meters away from the Cathedral in Strasbourg was that I NEVER climbed to the top. Either the place was closed, or I always felt I had plenty of time to do it - but in the end I never did.

So with Patrick at work, I really had no excuse this time, so I climbed it. Not a bad view actually - this is a pic from the top in the general direction of where our (OK, Gaby's apartment was). Since our first apartment never had a view of the Cathedral, I figured I wouldn't be able to make it out from up top anyway. At least the picture gives you a better to what high urban density actually means in France.

Fegersheim:

No surprise here.

The first place we stopped to eat in arriving in France was Matteo's. And it really hasn't changed a bit. Well, they did a little wood panelling, and the window display is new (it's new every season), and there's a new waitress - but hey, it was the same thing.

Matteo was genuinely surprised to see us, which was really nice. Of course, I did the chevre pizza, and Patty did the Tortellini Matteo (no lasagne in summer). And we finished it up with a nice shot of limoncello - had to make a little toast to the old gang (Andrea, Tim, Jill, Chris, Weber, Theresa, Joe, Gaby, Mamacita, etc.) and got a little weepy.

Fegersheim: The Land of the Apero

Come to Daddy !!!

I think I blocked it out of my mind actually. Even though we have cassis back in Indy (albeit dangerously low), it's been awhile since drinking a Kir.

It tasted even better than I imagined, but I'm a hopeless romantic. Heck, I even missed the glasses that it's served in.

And one thing even with Sarkozy in power in France, those french still know how to make some wine.

Fegersheim: Driving on the Other Side of the Road

Back to driving on the other side of the road.

This switching of driving lanes get kind of confusing. Fortunately, I think people are used to going with the flow and driving based on memory more than thinking which side of the road people actually drive on.

I will make this observation though. Even though it is the national pastime of France to figure out how to get around the rules (all the way from cutting in lines at the market or inappropriate stock trades that causes a major bank to lose millions of dollars - ouch), they do respect the parking rules a bit better than the Irish. Granted they actually have police officers that actually write tickets for parking violations, so that might be part of the secret. Ha!

Fegersheim: Getting There

Well, the first step is actually getting to France.

Patrick and I decided to fly separately so he could run an errand in Paris, so I had to do RyanAir (Cork-Dublin, Dublin-BadenBaden). The tickets were only 20 euros, which meant that the tickets cost about 200 euros when all was said and done.

The old adage that you get what you pay for is truer than ever with RyanAir. After the taxes, extra charges for carrying an iPod, inability of the workers of RyanAir to form the phrase customer service, and just general feeling of knowing how a cow feels - I finally made it Baden-Baden, where Patty was there waiting with a bottle of water (I think they knew RyanAir charged 10 euros for it on the plane).

Not to get ahead of my story, but on the way back, I regret that I was not travelling with Jamie. We have long conversations about children being unable to behave themselves in public, and the flight back home was no different. One mother was travelling with 4 young (under 7) children on the flight back to Dublin. I'm not sure what was worse - the fact that one of her children spent 40 minutes in the bathroom (some women were going to blow in more ways than one), or that two others were literally running up and down the aisle screaming playing tag. (Insert inappropriate comment about birth control).

I look forward to be back in the land of the living and business class.

The gayest cake in Ireland

Went to the Tuesday market in Kinsale as we usually do, and we stopped by the little bakery stand to pick up lunch's dessert.

Low and behold I find this pink lavender cake - yes, I know, that's gay enough. But upon closer examination, we realized that there was sparkles all over it. It was almost as if Tinkerbell threw up all over it.

The puppy was pretty good though.

Mystery Tree

Not that I think for a minute that we could actually grow this tree in our relatively dry climate in Indianapolis, I had to send this out to my garden geeks to see if they can identify it.

This photo does not due justice to the dramatic blues in this tree - absolutely amazing.

So Amber, I think it was your brother-in-law or someone who was the landscape architect who nailed the last mystery tree in France.

Cool House

Up around Compass Hill, there aren't a lot of houses, but there are a couple. This one in particular looks to be a modern prefab kind of thing. Kind of reminds me of a house I saw on the BBC of an english couple that built a prefab house from a company in Germany.

The only issue we see with this house are the clear plastic downspouts. Jamie and I were trying to guess how long it would taken before they became algae green plastic downspouts.

We'll keep you posted.

Compass Hill

I just realized that even though you've seen our front yard, you haven't seen our backyard - well, here it is.

Technically our backyard is another apartment building, but out back and up the hill - we have Compass Hill. You can walk around a big circle (about 1.5 km) and get a great all around view of the town, harbor, and surrounding areas.

No wonder I get all turned around when I drive to work, from this vantage point you can see that you're kind of going west instead of south.

Simple Summer Dinner

Granted we don't have the same issues in Ireland that we did with the french summers (as in, no air conditioning, which meant no oven usage from May to August) - but we do change food in the "summer".

I think I've mentioned the Cork Food Market before, but we stopped in a grabbed some nice antipasto stuff. Cheese (of course), crusty bread, olives, stuffed grape leaves, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes (in the olive oil), a little cold bean salad thingy, and sliced meats.

Jamie was particularly proud of his sliced meat selection - a nice sampler of 5 cold meats (3-4 thin slices each) for about 2 euros (don't convert to dollars, it's still bad).

Jamie's Mom comes for a visit

Jamie's Mom, Rachel, came to visit for the weekend - and as usual, we had a really nice time.

(Yes, we went to Ballymaloe)

And this is just a reminder to Jamie's Mom . . . our team building exercise of making fun of people is coming up next month - so any of those embarrassing pictures of Jamie when he was younger can be forwarded to this blog or my email.

And I did get some great stories of Jamie when he was longer, but I swore I wouldn't mention anything about the Barbie dolls.

Watch Wade blow up like a balloon

OK, this is a bit of a story . . .

Jamie was heading off to go shopping one night after work when he heard a 'meow' coming from our car. He ran upstairs, brings Patrick down, and sure enough - the engine is meowing.

So after finding some protective winter gloves, Patrick reaches into our car, unwedges fur ball from engine block, and pulls a little bundle of cuteness - otherwise known as a 6 weeks old kitten (plus or minus a couple of weeks) - adorable little thing, huh.

So we bring beastie inside, and she promptly runs under the (dusty) chest of drawers. (Who knew something could be so dirty even with weekly vaccuuming) Anyway . . .

Like all responsible people who see someone in need, we take said fur ball inside, get a whole bunch of toys and treats and food (oh yes, and a litter box), and the next thing we know we are the proud parents of a four legged beast that sounds like she swallowed a pager set to perpetually vibrate.

Of course, if you know me, you probably know that I blow up like a balloon when I'm near cats . . . or kittens. So even though she was adorable and needy and cuddly, there was only about 3 days before eyes were swelling shut, and I had a kleenex utility belt.

And oh yes, Patrick was back in the States for two weeks shortly after retrieving said bundle of joy, so I was a single parent - unable to have a room seperate us for a little allergy control.

So figuring my friend Rebecca adopts out about 100 animals a day, I figured I could find one good home. So taking my cues from her, I basically just put up that first pathetic picture of little beastie, and a Lilly colleague who's in the next cubicle wanted to adopt her within a day. The family has three boys and they just lost their cat of some 10 years, I think. Perfect. My only obvious stipulations were that she was eventually spayed and they took care of her as family.

Oh, so how did said kitty get in the car engine? No idea really - but we suspect that since we had gone out to lunch (a rare occurrence), the kitten was attracted to our car (over the other hundreds) because the engine was warm. Again, Ireland does not have summer.

All in all the Gods were smiling on this little thing - and hopefully she will have a long and happy life chasing mice and cuddling.

We have a new fence . . . I think

One of issues with being 4000 miles away is that you really don't know what's going on at your house.

Our neighbor Stu sent us an email saying that he was ready to switch out our nasty chain link fence that we share and replace it something with a better resale value.

So Patrick was home around that time and worked out the details, so I think the new fence should be in - and all I had to do was supply some capital. Cool.

Queen of Tarts

Awesome little place in Dublin that Mike and Kristi put us onto, when they were up there.

There's this little cafe that makes the most amazing chocolate and apple scones - that's not chocolate and apple mixed together - that wouldn't really work - I'm talking chocolate scones and apple scones.

Continuing on, the place was amazing - and amazingly small (think there were 8 small tables) - but they also had the nice little trick of wrapping those little pieces of goodness in a box with a ribbon. Like they know they are just little presents of fatness.

Dinner in Dublin

You know, I don't know if this was actually duck confit, or whether it just reminded me of Patrick's current addiction to the waterfowl preserved in its own duck fat (yes, I know, it sounds more disgusting than it actually is).

Needless to say, we stopped at a relatively nice restaurant when walking around town in Dublin, and went to this place.

The Spire of Dublin

I had to look up the story once I got back to a computer, but here's the Spire of Dublin. Basically a 130 meter tall of stainless steel.

It basically was placed next to the Nelson's Pillar, which was destroyed by the IRA back before I was born (yes, I know, a long 27 years ago).

I was surprised to read that it's actually 15 cm in diameter at the topi, where it looks like it could pop a balloon, if it just looked at the spire funny.

Success: Found the worst waiter in Ireland

Actually I originally took this picture for the really cool wooden light shades, but this was also the same wine bar, where I found the worst waiter in Ireland.

As someone who is somewhat fond of cheeses - large and small - I was trying to decide between ordering the French or the Irish cheese plate. This is the conversation with the french waiter:

Wade (otherwise known as customer): Can you tell me what cheeses are on the french cheese plate?
Waiter: Uh, cheese.
Wade: Can you be a little bit more specific?
Waiter: Uh, french cheese.
Wade: (Opens mouth, runs tongue along lower lip, looks up into eyelids, counts to 10, and pauses for another 60 seconds for dramatic affect) I'll take the Irish cheese plate.

Keep in mind also that this isn't some yee-haw in a red state who doesn't know the difference between american orange cheddar and velveeta (because let's be honest, is there really any difference?) - this is a guy who can't graduate from grade school in his native country without knowing which wine to drink with Comte.

It's Jura, you barbarian.

So photogenic

Still not capable of taking a decent picture.

Honestly I'm not sure where this was exactly - but it must have Dublin. It was the only place where I actually started the day with the sweater and had to take it off because it was too warm.

Usually I just keep the sweater on all day. Ah, Irish Spring.

Dublin Hotspots

Honestly, Dublin didn't really do it for me as far as tourist hotspots go. I'm sure I was missing stuff, but it's not like they have a Queen that we can queue up for on the street as she opens government.

Wow, could you imagine if you could keep government closed - even if it was just for summer vacation. Ooops, digressing again . . .
So Dublin, besides a couple of castles (shown here), the main attraction of this place is shopping and bars.