Days 3-9 - The Cliffnotes

So obviously, I'm entirely too far behind on my updates because I'm off living the fabulous life. Thus, I present to you, my gentile readers the Cliffnotes.

Day 3 - we almost died. Mom was driving up a street, with grass growing down the middle of it and she kept insisting it was a highway. Lola's English cousin (AKA the GPS) kept telling us it was a road and we were to take it. So we drove up it and after a while, another car came careening down the hill. There was nowhere for either of us to go. Both my mom and this other lady slammed on their brakes and the woman had to back her car up about 1000 feet and pull off to the side so there was enough room for us to pass. We also got quite lost, petted a horse and went to an amazing medieval banquet at Bunratty Castle.

Day 4 - Bunratty Castle Folk Park - mom and I walked the folk park and ate some food, we were kind of bored. Then we walked through the castle which was cool. So we left and drove out to the Cliffs of Moher. And OMG what a sight. Absolutely incredible. (See right ------) The picture doesn't even come close to doing it justice. It was so aweinspiring.
We stayed there for a while and then drove over to the B&B we were staying in for the night. And got lost again. We had our last dinner in Ireland at a cute little pub, repacked our bags and that was it!

Day 5 - Leaving on another jet plane - Mom and I got a plane for France! And bought some jewlery on the plane - I bought it and that bitch took it home with her... :-) Then we got to FRANCE!!!! Mom was terrified in the car with the Cabbie as we drove from the airport to the hotel & was very happy to know that I did not want her to drive in Paris. We got to our closet... er um, I mean hotel room. (Thank God there was an elevator!) And threw our stuff down and went out to see the sights. We didn't make it far before mom faceplanted off the curb! She insisted she was fine and then I made her walk a bunch of stairs. Up to Sacre Coeur, up to the top of Arc de Triomphe and all over the city of Paris. She insists it was worth it... and I agree, though I felt very bad. We took lots of pictures and had a great time. Then we got lost... (are you sensing a theme here, yet) while trying to find the way to get down to the boats to take a boat tour. Then we had to rope 8 other people into doing it because they only run the last one if there's 10 ppl. So we panicked a bit because we really wanted to go! But we found some people and we went and it was FREEZING. But absolutely fucking amazing! I would post a video, but I think I've lost it!!!!

Day 6 - Paris insanity - We spent all day running around and seeing the sights of Paris - Notre Dame, Tourist Shops, Hotel de Ville, Centre Pompidou....  then we got crepes at the base of the Eiffel tower and waited in line forever, because of course, this is us and the friken elevator broke! So we finally got up into the tower and saw the city of lights by night. It was beautiful. It was a great night! We walked around the city a bit after and then went back to the hotel.

Day 7 - I'm an idiot! So day 7 started with a bang when the front desk called to tell us our cab was downstairs waiting for us and we were still sound asleep! We leapt out of bed and tossed clothes on, grabbed our bags and ran out the door. Make up? Jewelry? Bathroom? Water? NOPE - clothes and bags and out the door! We took the cab to the tour place, ran next door and grabbed some food and then got on the bus to go Castle Hopping! We went to Amboise which was very pretty and then got in the bus to go to the next castle and the bust stopped in the middle of the road. The bus driver and guide got off the bus and then the guide came on the speakers and said "I need some young strong men to come out and help us move a car." and we all kind of looked at one another and smiled on the bus and then he said again, "no.. really. If we don't move this car we will have to wait for the police to come". So a bunch of guys got off the bus and picked up a car, put it partially on the curb and wheeled it down the street a full car's length so that we could get by on the bus... Guess that guy's always going to wonder wtf happened to his car. We then went to Cheverny and Chenonceau (see above), both of which were gorgeous!

Day 8 - Not going to be fooled again! - So for the following day, I scheduled a wake-up call. Except for the fact that I asked for an appel de reve (a call of dreams) instead of an appel de reveile (a wake-up call) at the desk and they laughed at me :-) We went on another bus tour. This time was to Monet's Gardens at Giverney and the Palace of Versaille. Versaille was a pain in the ass - too many people, too much to see and not enough time! But Monet's house... that was amazing! (See right----) It's no wonder that the man was so inspired living in a place like that! We got back to Paris and walked around a bit and got Kebabs and went back to our hotel and ate and packed and hung out for our last night together in Paris.

Day 9 - We got up and moving the next day and called for two taxis - one to take mom to the airport and one to take me to the train station. Then we said goodbye and went our separate ways - It was sad. But we did good! I wrestled my damn luggage through the train station and bought a ticket and found a lovely nice lady to help me drag the damn suit cases onto the train and then I went to La Rochelle! When I got to the train station, I had no idea if anyone was going to be there to greet me. But two lovely gentlemen helped me with my suitcases because I had to go down a flight of stairs, walk under the tracks and climb another set of stairs with my two giant suit cases and duffle bag. It was kind of strange getting off the train - it kind of felt like coming home.... So I was standing in line for the taxis - the next one in fact, when a jolly looking man with a large handle-bar mustache and a chic looking woman came up to me and said.. "Joann?" in these cute little French accents! Garrett had seen a message on facebook and told Thiery and Sandrine that I was arriving!!!!!! They took me to the hostel and I got settled and then went house hunting! :-) That night, all the assistants that had arrived spent a great night at the hostel bar getting to know one another and having a good time. It was a great first night back in La Rochelle.


Ok - kind of the LONG cliffnotes version, but that's okay.
Weeks 1-4 in France coming soon. :-)

Day 2 – You Kissed What?

The next day (Monday) we got up and went into town, puttered around a bit, and went to a local café for a real Irish breakfast. It was huge – eggs, rashers, sausage, toast juice, coffee, and a scone (for those of you ignorant Americans who don’t know what rashers are, they’re kind of like Canadian bacon thickness and taste but in wide sliced American bacon size). It was then that we realized we’d forgotten not one, but two cameras back at the B&B. We walked to the bus station and grabbed a cab. This second cab driver was not nearly as entertaining as the first, but he definitely had some issues – like maybe Parkinson’s or something – because all he did was twitch and shake and stutter, poor man. So he drove us to the B&B and I ran inside for the essentials (cameras and red bull, you know) and when I’d come back out the cabbie had convinced my mother that it would be faster and just a few Euro more to take the cab out to Blarney castle instead of going back into town and snagging the bus. So we had our very own personal taxi van out to the castle and grounds. We were scheduled to be at Blarney for two-three hours, but we spent more than 5 hours down there!

So we walked over to the castle and took lots of pictures and then we went down into the dungeon – OMG scary! Dark, dank, small, and terrifying. I couldn’t imagine anyone actually existing in one of those things. Then we went into the castle and I tried to climb the stairs without having a panic attack. They were so small you couldn’t fit your entire foot on them and there was no railing, just a thick rope running down the middle of the spiral and we kept stopping every stair. It was dark and enclosed and filled with people and I did NOT feel secure. We stopped off on a few floors of the castle to look around and after the second stop I had to force myself back onto the stairs. If there had been an exit from there, I might have just taken it and run off. But we finally made it to the top without incident and waited in line to kiss the germ-infested, pissed-on-by-the-locals Blarney Stone. Now why this particular stone, way the hell up at the top of the castle, is so important, I’m still not sure. It’s just one of the stones of the walls of the castle – dude I could’ve kissed any number of hundreds of other stones from the ground! But whatever. So to kiss the stone you have to sit with your back to the wall on this pad and lay back. Then you stick out your arms to hold on to two bars and the assistant grabs you round the waist and slides you up to the stone. Then it’s time to pucker up!

Mom went first, and she told me she was gonna kiss it. I got a great shot of her doing just that (or so I thought) and then it was my turn. I kissed the fucker, with full lip on stone contact. And then I got up and mom not only didn’t have a picture of me doing so, but she tells me she didn’t really kiss it! Her nose and part of her upper lip touched it and that was it – it was too quick for anything else. What a beotch! So it’s at this point I tell her why you’re really not supposed to kiss the Stone and why the lovely officer the night before had told us DO NOT kiss the Stone – because the locals go up and wee on it because they know it’s such a grand ol’ tourist attraction. Mom looks at me like I’m nuts at this point because I knew this from the start and I kissed the damn thing anyways (she’s not wrong, I tell you, I am a bit nuts). But we spent the next few hours looking at the grounds and the poison garden and witch’s kitchen. All good fun. Then it was Time To Shop! For those of you who know my mom and I, you’ll know that shopping for us is like an Olympic event and if it were to suddenly crop up at the summer Olympics, we’d be medalists instead of just mental. Blarney Woolen Mills is the SHITE. We got all kinds of awesome gifts there and spent over 100 Euro between us. (Now here I’d like to point out that they asked us if we wanted to pay by traveler’s cheques and we said no, let’s use the card and we can cash in the checks later when we’re running out of cash. We’ll come back to this fuckup later in our adventure.)

So we went back to Cork and missed some other stuff on our list – Blackrock Castle, St. Anne’s Church, the butter museum and City Hall where JFK gave a speech in 1963. But we’d had such a blast at Blarney we didn’t really care. We had to book it to the bus station to get out to the airport to rent the car. When we rented it, they told us it would be another 40 Euro a day to insure a driver under 25 in the car L so I didn’t get to drive. We got settled in the car and headed back to the B&B. Mom tried to make one right-hand turn into the right-hand (and thus WRONG) lane, but I shouted left lane, left lane! And we made it all right. We dropped the car off and walked into town because according to the lady at the B&B desk, parking was shite. So after walking around all the closed shops in town (because it wasn’t high tourist season and everything in Europe closes by 8) we went back to the hotel to repack our bags, preparing for our road trip the day after – and I assure you, nothing could have prepared us for what was in store the following day. 

Day 1: You Fookin Stop, that’s what.

Okay so the first day of our journey – Mom and I left Syracuse at 1:25 p.m. on Saturday September 17. We took a two hour flight to Chicago, waited around for a few hours and then hopped a seven hour flight (complete with rude flight attendants, baggage that wouldn’t fit, and two babies) to Manchester, where we arrived at 8 a.m. Sunday. We waited in Manchester for a bit then hopped a third and final flight from Manchester to Cork Ireland. We’d been talking to an older lady in Manchester and when we got off the flight in Cork she had this huge bag coming down the carousel, so I offered to grab it and put it on her cart and then she kissed me! It was really funny. So one of my bags was ripped – we had a fun time sorting that out with Aer Lingus, who really did absolutely nothing for us. And then we went to the top of the line (not upstairs, just to the very front, you know) and grabbed a cab. Now as the cabby took us to our B&B (which you can find in Ireland every four feet) I started to ask him some stuff about the rules of the road because mom and I were going to be driving in friken Ireland (because we’re crazy bitches and that’s how we roll). So I started to ask him what to do at a red light because as you all know, we have right on red in the states after you’ve stopped for the red light, so I was just getting to that part, but I said “So when you come to a red light, do you…” and his immediate response was… “You fookin’ stop, that’s what!” As if I were insane (now here I must note that by this point we were both convinced that he was insane by the way he swerved in and out of traffic on the wrong side of the road). But we all thought this was hysterical.

We got to the B&B about 11:30 am and our room was not ready (check in had been moved from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. about a month after I booked our room and no one had told us. So the lovely ladies at the Gabriel Guest House helped us with our bags and set us loose in the city of Cork. We tried to shop – the stores were either extremely expensive or totally mobbed, and we were just too tired. So we walked a bit and we stopped at a pub for a late lunch which wasn’t too bad (it beat the hell out of airplane food). There we met some lovely Irishwomen (Tanya and her friend whose name I cannot remember). We talked for a bit and exchanged contact info so that we could facebook. Then we went back to the B&B and our room was almost ready. We got all five of our bags down the stairs into our room and freshened up (no sleeping though because that makes you all jet-lagy) and got ready to go on our walking tour. 

John (our lovely tour guide) met us right at the B&B and took us on a walkabout of the city. It was really cool. We walked around and heard about the history of the city and we saw a bunch of monuments and parts of the city most tourists never visit and then we went into an old fort which had been converted into police barracks and we met a very nice policeman who showed us his pepper spray and his night stick and we chatted for a bit. Then we went to get some fish & chips (which you cannot just get at a sit-down pub, but you have to buy out of a take-out window) and shared them with John on our way back to Gabriel House – all in all a terrific first day and night in Ireland. 

Updates forthcoming

Hey all,
Sorry about the radio silence. I've been without time and then without Internet pretty much since I took off from the states. So the daily blow by blow of the ten days of travel will be up within the next few days and then I'll post kind of general/more weekly stuff. Or maybe just the really odd/funny random shit that happens to me - which we all know and love - I'll tell you all about it!
:-)