July 3rd - London!

July 3rd

What a fun, full day! But first, a bit about our hotel in London. Holy walk-in closet batman! Our room was tiny. TINY! And we were paying a fortune for the pleasure of staying there. Tricia and I had barely any walking around room on the edges of the bed. The TV was hung high in a corner. The bathroom was scarely bigger than the one’s you’d find on an airplane. And climbing into the shower was like performing a Houdiniesque or David Blane escape trick. How we longed for our beautiful La Barrosa beach house or our spacious Portugese hotel rooms. But, as we soon found out, Londoners have a certain knack for crawling into and existing in tight spaces.

The Tube. Yes, the Tube. Or more aptly described, the Sardine Can. While Grandma, Maria and Eva opted for some rest time at the hotel, the rest of us set off onto the streets of London and to our Tube stop at Pimlico. What we thought would be an ordinary ride to Victoria Station and then onto the Tower of London proved to be anything but. It was rush-hour, or peak time on the Tube. We had been on busy subways before in our travels, but none of us had seen anything like this. When the train pulled into the stop, it was clogged and absolutely crowded with people. The trains were not just full, they were wall to wall, elbow to elbow, armpit to face full. There was literally no room for any additional passengers. We must have waited for about 6-8 trains before we decided that it was every man and woman for themselves and that we’d just individually squish onto a train and meet and Victoria Station, the next stop. Casey and I stuck together. We held off for another couple of trains. But finally, we saw our moment. One person got off, so we barged on. We pushed and squeezed and did what we could to slide forward just far enough that the subway doors behind us could close. We made it – just barely.

Upon getting off at the next stop to switch lines, we discovered that Sammie and Tricia had also made it onto that train. We laughed and joked while waiting out several more trains until David and Santi joined us. It was crazy. Not sure how the people of London can do that each and every day. It makes my 15-minute minivan commute to work each day look like child’s play.

So then we were off for the Tower of London. It was a great attraction. We saw and learned a whole lot about Brittish history in this amazing location that has been home to kings and queens, executions, tortures, battles, and Nazi imprisonment. We did a lot of walking, took in the incredible Crown Jewels, then had the fun of experiencing a Beefeater tour led by one of the queen’s working bodyguards. All in all it was a fabulous morning, and the kids and the adults both enjoyed it a great deal.

Following the Tower we met up with Maria, Eva and Grandma for a great pub lunch in the same área. This being our third pub in London, we were beginning to get the hang of it. You order your food and drinks at the bar, beers with long handles are cask beers that are served at room temperaturas and those with short taps are cold, and many Brits seem to prefer drinks like shandy’s, Pim’s, and cider over regular beer. The food and atmosphere in this place were good. According to Rick Steve’s the pub crawl of pub lunches includes beef stew, fish and chips and curry. Last night I had the fish and chips. Today I tried the curry – along with a tall, cold glass of cider. I wasn’t disappointed. It was good stuff all around.

The afternoon? Hop On Hop Off bus tour. It was a good way to see the city, and we basically just hopped on once and hopped off once. We wanted to ride and see most of the sites while just kicking back and relaxing. It was good, though I drifted a bit off a couple times and started feeling tired toward the end. Eventually we hopped off near Trafalgar Square and enjoyed some peaceful moments of ice cream and shade and quiet.

The rest of the night went like this. Sammie and I walked quickly to a tourist office to inquire about Wimbledon and some good viewing places for World Cup. We taxied back to the group at Trafalgar Square then all enjoyed another great pub meal at a place in Picadilly Circus. Following that we walked to the London Eye, London’s huge ferris wheel and answer to Paris’ Eiffel Tower and did the Eye.

It was great and we saw London at sunset from hundreds of feet up. A longish walk back across Westminster Bridge and along the Thames brought us back to our hotel. It was quite a day – full and fun-filled. London is a vast, sprawling city that can be difficult to cover on foot. And its sites are way too numerous to cover in just a few short days. But we sure tried our best to fill our day with London fun, and I think we definitely accomplished our goal.

End of the Trip

July 9th

Well, as often happens, I became less diligent about writing as we entered the final stages of our trip. Things became hectic, I became lazy, and the result was no blogging from London on. As I write now we’re experiencing moderate turbulence on our flight from Dublin to Paris. After a short layover in Paris we’ll be just a 9-hour flight from home. It’s sad but a bit of a relief at the same time. I’m fairly exhausted and very satisfied thanks to a trip that truly proved to be the grand adventure I was hoping it would be.

So, London and after…

July 2nd

My family and Grandma arrived on a flight from Lisbon early afternoon London time. We were greeted by some rather stuffy passport control personnel who demanded to know the exact street address of the hotel in which we’d be staying while in London. This forced us to dig through our bags for the address, which forced us out of the line. Amidts the hubub, Grandma lost track of her passport. She was sure that the man who had helped her initially at the desk had held onto it, but he had since vanished and no one believed Grandma’s story. After much digging and a little worrying, finally a helpful attendant went over to the original desk and found Grandma’s passport. This wasn’t the best welcome we could have hoped to receive on arriving in London. But, oh well, we were there. We managed to then make it easily through the airport and onto our 75-minute express bus to downtown London.

We then arrived at Victoria station, which meant a 15-minute walk to our hotel, the Blades. It was an easy stroll through Westminster, apparently one of the ritziest, most expensive neighborhoods in London. When we got to the Blades we were welcomed by a shirtless David hanging out on his second floor, street-facing room. Though I could’ve handled seeing less of David – ha, ha – it was a welcome site to see him and of course the rest of his family. It was a fun, happy reunion after three days of being separated.

The rest of that afternoon and evening were pretty chill. The adults went out for a pint, we all relaxed for a time, then everyone except Maria and David, who were meeting a friend of David’s, went out for dinner and did some walking along the Thames. Tricia stayed out a bit longer with the kids and got some great pictures near Big Ben and Parliment. But, more or less, the day was over. It was another long travel day, but we were very happy to be in a comfortable hotel – though not short on long, tall staircases – and ready to attack the city the next morning.

July 4th – 8th

While I’d love to write about all our adventures on these last five days of our trip, I’m honestly running out of gas. I’m just going to summarize and hit the high points.

July 4th brought Sammie and me to Wimbleson. This turned into one of the most fantastic experiences of my life, and definitely one of my all time top sports memories of my life. We waited in the que to enter, we marched into the entrance with a packed crowd accompanied by a school band, we ate strawberries and cream and we say Tornado Black play girls juniors, the Bryan Brothers win their doubles semi match, and Novac Jocavic warm up prior to winning his semi final singles match. We watched a few other juniors matches and also took in some of the men’s semis from the hill on the big screen. It was fabulous!!!

July 5th was a travel day, and what a travel day it was. We left London early in the morning and ended up boarding the wrong train. We were supposed to be on an express train but ended up on a local train. It set the whole day, and our journey to Ireland, back about 4 hours. But, after getting over my stress and heading the advice of a Londener who told me to “chill,” we did have a good day. We boarded the later ferry from Wales to Ireland and arrived in Dublin around 5:00 rather than around 1:00. We picked up our car from the airport, I got a crash course in driving a stick-shift on the opposite side of the road, and we were off for Kilkenny. It was a pretty drive and we were so happy to receive our warm welcome 90 minutes later from Helen at the Pinecrest B&B. The Aragos joined us for a delightful tea in the breakfast room, the five of us went into town for a late dinner, then Tricia and I walked the town, hit a pub for a little World Cup viewing, then retreated back to our room for a much-needed and deserved night’s sleep. Whew! What a day!!!

The following day, July 6th, was a beauty. Unfortunately, it was another travel day, but it was a relaxing travel day, and not nearly like the exhausting one we had the day earlier. Our full Irish breakfast was huge and wonderful then we were on our way. The Aragos headed toward the fast road to Kinsale, while we planned to meander our way south. It was a gorgeous, rewarding drive. We spent much of it on tiny, two-lane roads that wound through pastures and farmlands and rolling hills and small towns. We stopped for picnic food in one town then enjoyed a meal from the top of a hill, enjoying grand views of the green countryside below us. We said hello to a few sheep, got a little too close to the left side of the road on a few occasions, then eventually found our way to the beautiful harbor town of Kinsale by mid afternoon. We met the Aragos at our hotel – Jim Edwards, which lay above a bustling pub restaurant – then walked the town a bit.  Some of us returned to Jim Edwards for dinner, we enjoyed a one-man musical session at another pub, then Tricia and I finished the evening with some more music at yet another pub in town

Portugal and Beyond!

It's been many days since I wrote, and that's mostly because those days have been filled up with activities and I have wanted to stop or slow down to write.

We finished up our time on the beach with one last day of sun. It was Saturday, and the beach swarmed with people due to the weekend and probably the fact that July was just around the corner. I don't mind the busy beach - still plenty of sand and water for everyone, and it makes for more unique people watching. We all enjoyed this last full day, spending most of our time playing in the sand and in the water, and trying to finish the beach reads we'd all been working on.

Sunday was get-away-day. The Aragos were working their way back to Madrid and then to London via a flight from Spain. My family and Grandma Nancy were off to spend three days in Portugal and then a flight to London via Lisbon.

Portugal was a crazy adventure - mostly good stuff with some stressful moments in the middle. We began Sunday morning by driving from the Spanish beaches west into Portugal. A little hiccup at the border involving the electronic tollways and our rental car didn't slow us down much, and it gave me my first opportunity to say "obrigado." We then drove another hour or so along the southern Portugal freeway before arriving in our beautiful destination of Salema, Portugal, a small village along the Atlantic coast. We felt at home immediately...

...okay, more to come later. Getting car sick on the bus ride to downtown London. Cheerio!

Last days on the beach

We're nearing the end of our awesome week on the beach near Chiclana, Spain. I have to post and write about a couple things we did recently that were real high points for me.

First was playing tennis on Spanish red clay with Sammie. I had never played tennis on clay before, and prior to coming on this trip it was one of the things I was thinking in the back of my mind that I would like to try. Conveniently, there are several resorts near our beach community and a couple of them have clay courts. It was easy to rent an hour - they even provided racquets, shoes and balls. The fellow who ran the tennis club was from the Czech Republic and his wife was from Germany. Neither spoke great English, and our Spanish is rather weak, but we made it work. Tricia came along just to watch, and Sammie and I had a terrific time. The clay was weird, giving unpredictable bounces and causing the ball to bounce rather high in the air. It took awhile for Sammie and I to get used to it, but by the end we were doing rather well. Afterwards, with a cafe con leche from the club cafe in hand, we could say playing on the clay was a rousing success.

The other fun, but somewhat harrowing, experience was renting and riding mountain bikes on the cliffs overlooking the ocean between Conil and Roche, Spain. Getting to Conil, finding the rental shop, arranging the bikes with a dude who spoke no English, navigating our way out of Conil to to the trails were all very dicey experiences. But, the riding was awesome. We had great mountain bikes, and the trails were just dusty paths through the shrubbery on the cliffs. We often pedaled just feet from the edge of the cliffs with nothing to prevent us from toppling over. The trails were not well-marked, so we got lost a couple of times. But, again, the riding was fun and the view spectacular. We did a little swimming and a little drinking at a beach cove just off the trail before turning back. It wasn't a perfect experience, but I guess I would say all the trouble was worth the couple hours of fun.

Tomorrow we head to Portugal, and the Aragos back to Madrid. We'll reunite in London four days later. For now, I'm going to go and enjoy one last day on the beach and probably some World Cup tonight. Fun stuff!!!

June 25th - Playa de la Barrosa

Life on the beach. What can I say other than we’re mostly relaxing, soaking up the sun and surf, and eating and drinking. Not really a lot of adventures or excursions up to this point, just enjoying staying put and traveling up and down the little street that connects our house with the playa.

Last night was a great meal of octupus, shrimp and some other awesome things. And today we ordered ahead for a big meal of paella at Bar Pepin, one of our favorite little bars just a block away. We’ll be eating the paella for the traditional afternoon meal around 2:00.

The beach is fantastic – lots of endless sand and waves. We’ve bought some toys – boogie boards, balls, paddles, etc… and have been parking ourselves in the sand for hours at a time. Most mornings start with a café con leche and some toast at the Che Bar with our friend, bartender Antonio. We go there so often he wouldn’t even let me pay for our cafes this morning. The wifi’s good there, too, so between the beach and the house and meals other places, we often park ourselves at Che and just chill for a bit.

This morning after Che, we decided to experience churros casero down the boardwalk a bit from our beach. This was a place where they make the churros fresh at the restaurant. I think we all plowed through four plates-full, dipping them in the delicious, thick hot chocolate they are served with. Tricia enjoyed the meal, too, because it was her first time getting fried eggs for breakfast. While in Spain it can be easy to miss traditional American breakfasts. Spaniards don’t eat a lot for breakfast, and what they do eat is small – just some coffee and toast typically. Not sure how they do it because then they wait until around 2:00 to have their lunch. It’s certainly a different eating culture here with lunch a couple hours later than we’re used to back home and dinner about 3-4 hours later than we’re used to.

Oh, I forgot to mention that this morning before breakfast, Tricia, Sammie and me explored some rocky coastline just to the west of our beach. We walked around looking in the tide pools, finding a few hermit crabs along the way.

Today is paella and more beach time. Tonight will probably just be some snacking and maybe some soccer viewing. Then tomorrow Sammie and I have an appointment at a raquet club to play tennis on clay courts. Playing on clay is something I’ve never experienced, so I’m really looking forward to it.