Moonlight Midnight

Most probably thought I was crazy, and I frankly had to wonder myself, when I decided that for a vacation over the new year that I would go to the Arctic Circle.  I dislike being cold and I wear sweaters in the heat of summer.  So why would I want to go to Finland, where there's snow, temperatures at a high of zero, and daylight only for about four hours?  Because it involved dog sledding of course!!

A group of 6.5 of us (Jack is still the 0.5) flew way up to northern Finland, well within the confines of the Arctic Circle for some outdoor fun and lots of animal butts. 


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Yep,  way up there.  

We stayed at a place that had only cabins and igloos (both the ice and the glass types).  We stayed in the cabins, which were great and warm.  You couldn't have bribed me to stay in the ice igloos.  We arrived on the 30th and on the 31st, our first outing was a reindeer sleigh ride.  It was very low key and sort of comical, since we were staring at a reindeer's butt during the entire ride.

Yeah, like that.

And when they had to pee (which was amazingly often), like this. 

 

 

After the sleigh ride, we had lunch.  And if staring at a reindeer's butt for a couple hours didn't make you hungry for one, you got to try some anyway.  That's right, reindeer stew was lunch.  Ironic, I know.  But up there, where there is lots of snow, think of them as cows that do more than chew cud all day long.  They pull stupid tourists on a sled. 

New Year's Eve was relaxing in the cabin playing cards, watching episodes of Modern Family and movies on the laptop, and drinking wine.  We're quite the party animals.

Kim, Brian, Maurice, Jen, Mike, and Cynthia

The next day we had the majority of the day to explore the grounds of the place we were staying, because our next adventure wasn't until 8:30 that night.  So after breakfast we geared up and out we went, into the winter wonderland....

...where we saw snow.....

...and igloos....

...and the insides of igloos...

 ...and more igloos....

  ...and hilarity ensued....

....in the snow...

...and then it got dark...

...at 2pm.

That night there was snowmobiling to see the Northern Lights.  However, since it was cloudy and there wasn't a hint of the Northern Lights, it wasn't enjoyable.  Jen and I had never been on snowmobiles, motorcycles, jet skis or anything of the kind, so driving them was stressful.  And Jack hated it because it was past his bedtime and he was being flung around in a cart behind the snowmobile while he was trying to sleep.

At the break for snacks around the fire, Brian hated it more, because Jack was asleep and there was no position comfortable to hold Jack.

The next and last excursion was by far one of the most awesome things I've ever experienced and the very reason I took the trip. 

 I got to "drive" the sled, which just meant slowing the dogs down around turns and from getting too close to the sled in front of us.  Almost every single time I hit the break, the white dog would turn around in stride and look at me as if to ask, "What the hell are you doing?  Don't you realize that it's really boring to go slow?"

 My dogs (above) before we headed out.  They all didn't look like the "typical" husky you're used to--notice the darkest dog in the bunch.  And one of the guides told us that since their husky farm is so big (140 dogs), they don't have the time to train all of the puppies.  So, when they're old enough to pull a sled with a team, they're leashed up and learn by running with the dogs they're running with.

They were all so sweet and loved for you to pet them.

I think these dogs were more excited to go than any of us.  This was after our lunch break, but they did the same thing in the morning before we headed off.  They just wanted to run.  This is one of the videos I took.




I'm going to link Kim's photos here, because she already posted them and that means I don't have to :)  They are a compilation of all of our photos, so enjoy!

Girls Like Us

To the land of escargot and foie gras for Thanksgiving!!  That's where Jen, Kim, and I went, without husbands (I think they preferred that more than I, plus I wanted to use that word).   Unfortunately the Christmas market wasn't open and the weather was cold and wet, but France has wine and food and wine and wine.

Strasbourg is only about 2 hours from Wiesbaden and it's in the Alsace region, which at several points in history, couldn't figure out to which country it belonged--to France or to Germany.  Once it was decided and because of the winners, they speak French, but their food is influenced by Germany (think pork knuckle and potatoes with a delicious sauce, like Jen learned), and many people speak at least a little German.

We had fabulous food and some great wine.  When we arrived and were walking in no particular direction, Kim was about to pass out from hunger and we stumbled upon a very nice restaurant.  Everyone was very friendly and it helped we were willing to try without being demanding.  Jen asked our waiter a recommendation for food and what arrived looked very much like corned beef.  We were told it was pork, but it didn't taste like pork.  Later that night, we figured out from someone else's plate at another restaurant that she probably had pork knuckle.

For Thanksgiving we had dinner reservations at a restaurant apparently popular with dignitaries.  I got my escargot and foie gras.  The foie gras was a little sweet for my taste, but the escargot was wonderful--not Petit Louis wonderful, but still wonderful.  Our waitress was so nice.  She only spoke French, but didn't do in an elitist way.  She was clearly much more comfortable in French, but understood English.  I can't explain it.

Thanksgiving appetizers: escargot and foie gras

The next day before we left, we stopped by the Strasbourg City Hospital, which has a wine cellar that was built in 1395 and contains ancient wine barrels and wine from the 17th century.  We also did some clothing shopping and got some wine from the grocery store to take home.

My Old Kentucky Home

I had a wild hair. Which is funny, because it's usually a stiff chin hair, not a wild hair, but whatever kind of hair it was, I went home over the 4th of July for a wedding reception. I had already declined my invitation many weeks before, but bored one Saturday, I discovered "cheap" tickets, so I plucked the hair or smoothed the hair or...I bought the ticket, okay.

It was a quick trip home, I'll admit that, but well worth it. I flew into Washington and out of Louisville, where the reception was held. I spent 1.5 days in Baltimore, if you can count the rush hour traffic from Dulles Airport, which we avoided by stopping in Washington D.C. for Angus burgers and beer. On Friday Chris and I set out early on a road trip to Louisville, Kentucky.


Instead of the typical mindset of having to get there as quickly as possible, we drove and when we wanted to stop, we did. Our first fun stop, was at a casino somewhere near Charleston, West Virginia (but not Charlestown races and slots like you hear on the commercials in Ohio). In 30 minutes, we lost $33 in a few slots, but mostly my fault at the craps table. I was able to annoy a bunch of old men when I showed up to the table and everyone passed the dice until they got to me, when I happily threw them for craps. Everyone loses! Woohoo!!

Back in the car and on the road a while longer, I saw a sign for Louisa (Kentucky), when I exclaimed, "that's where my great-grandparents were from! I was there once to see G.G.'s (great-grandmother) grave!" The genealogist in Chris couldn't resist, so we turned the car around and headed back for the exit and found our way to Louisa.
Once there, we trolled through town searching for a cemetery and finally stopped to ask someone. He gave me directions and we headed up a hill to find it. I had been to Louisa once before when I was probably around 10 years old. The area where my great-grandparents had their house was going to be flooded to turn into a park and we went down so we could see it one time, and for Grandpa and my Dad to see it one last time. We saw where the house used to stand and some bricks that once made up the one-room school house where my grandpa attended. On that trip we also visited G.G.'s grave and all that I could remember was that the grave was on a hill.


So Chris and I searched this small cemetery, looking at every headstone and plate in the grass, but found nothing. Back into town we stopped at a gas station for water, where Chris asked a customer about another cemetery. He gave us the locations of two others, which were more out of the way than the first. The largest of the three we visited, I was certain felt right, but after searching, we found nothing. Although we didn't find the graves, we did learn that one of our federal government officials came from Louisa. Pretty exciting.


On Saturday morning, for breakfast we met Chris' family, who had driven up from Tennessee, along with his daughter and son-in-law, the bride and groom. I just loved listening to them talk, because I love their accents. However, after not understanding something Chris said (his accent gets thicker the more he's around his family), I was corrected by his Mama that he didn't have an accent. Yes Ma'am!

The reception was Saturday. It was a burger bar and a local Louisville brew, with instructions to "wear whatever you're comfortable in." Perfect. I think weddings are overrated. The beer was wonderful and the burgers were delicious! Low key and no chicken dances. Nice job, Jen and Scott! Congratulations!

We visited the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory and that was awesome. They had an exihibt where you could choose from 4 game-used bats to stand at a plate to swing or have your picture taken. Every kid was opting for Lou Gehrig's bat (or was it Mickey Mantle's?), but being the oddball Reds fan, I chose Johnny Bench's bat.


On Sunday, we went to Churchill Downs. Because of the holiday, it was free to get in. Completely confused on where we could sit to see the track out of the sun and how to bet on the races, we sought help. A lovely usher gave us seats for a very small tip, a card on how to bet, and the program for race day. We sat in "box" seats, which had a tv with the race and were directly in front of the room where the rich people stayed, with air conditioning, servers, tables, food, and drinks. They only came out to watch the races.


We bet on every race we saw. We knew nothing about the horses, but chose based on their names and sometimes their odds. Our math wasn't that great, but I think we came out almost even.

Here's to America's birthday and to chin hairs!

Baby It's Cold Outside!

This year, Christmas felt more like it should during the holidays. Mom came to visit and arrived with Wayne on the 23rd. Luckily, they were here for the last day of the Christmas market in Wiesbaden. They tasted potato pancakes, Gluehwein, and a bratwurst at the market, all within the first few hours they were in Germany. Not bad and that was just the first trip down. They wanted to see the market, which is called the "twinkling star market," at night. So around 4:00, when there was only a few more minutes of daylight (I'm not kidding), we went down to walk around again and have more food--this time potato soup.

On Christmas Day I had 12 of my closest, crazy friends over for dinner, drinks, and fun. Come to think of it, that's really what happens every time we get together, but this time it involved a tree and hot oil--Will and the other boys fried a turkey in my backyardish area and it was delicious. Everyone brought something to share and we had more food than we could stuff ourselves with. Surprisingly, Mom and Wayne weren't scared away and enjoyed meeting everyone. Mom realized that I am not an alcoholic--ALL of my friends drink this much ;)


We visited Ruedesheim the day after Christmas and then on Sunday we drove down to Trier and stayed the night. In Trier there are a ton of Roman ruins, which they enjoyed seeing, even if we couldn't get into some of them. It was colder than a witch's.....well, you know, so walking around outside was hard after while. Luckily there are heated churches and bakeries for kaffee und kuchen (coffee and cake) during the afternoon, which we delightedly sampled during the afternoon.

The next morning, although Wayne was feeling really sick, we drove the 20 minutes across the border to Luxembourg to see the American military cemetery and where Patton is buried. After that, we came straight home and Wayne went straight to bed, where he remained until they left on the 1st. Poor Wayne, on his first trip to Germany he stayed home sick for most of it.

Because of that, Mom and I just did little trips around here. The best was when we went to this old monestery, Kloster Eberbach, which isn't a monestary anymore. We had a great lunch there of Riesling soup, then took the walking tour of the monestery.

Mom was also starting to get sick and by the 31st, she had it. I went to a party and they were in bed by 8. I went to a couple's house down the street for a small party with fondue. Just before midnight we went downtown, where I went last year, to watch the crazy Germans light fireworks. This year, however, some of those crazies were my friends.

Although everyone could have done without the getting sick part, I'm glad I could have family here for Christmas.

Here are the pictures from Mom's visit and from Christmas.

I'm On a Boat!

I think I had the best vacation ever! For 12 days, I laughed with wonderful friends and saw and experienced things and places I never thought I would. We celebrated two birthdays and one U.S. holiday. There was one broken bone and no fights. We ate like kings and may have had a few drinks.

Our Boat: Royal Caribbean Brilliance of the Seas

Very early on Wednesday, November 18th, four of us caught a train to the Frankfurt airport to fly to Barcelona, Spain to board the ship. Once we arrived at the port, we one of the first ones to check in for the cruise. At 11:30 we were able to board the ship, which didn't leave until 6pm. We had lunch and had our first requisite "drink of the day." We explored the ship and once we could get to our rooms, we all split up--some took naps and some continued to explore.

Amy, Will, and Dave with their drinks of the day

The next day was at sea, so we could do whatever we want. I think we all made it to the gym and then relaxed the rest of the day. That night was our first formal night for dinner, which meant we had to be pretty and Bond-like.

Dave, me, Amy, Will, Alicesara, Brandon

Our first port was Valletta, Malta. Brandon, Alicesara, Dave, and I got off and explored together since Amy and Will had been there before. I liked it and found the buildings interesting. It was the first time I had been that far south in Europe or that close to Africa, so the buildings were a little different and I liked them. Valletta was a very hilly city which made it interesting with the steep roads and steps. We walked a lot of the city and luckily we got off the boat pretty early, so we got to see the city before it was filled with people.


Our next stop was Alexandria, Egypt and we were there for two days. This is the port I was most looking forward to. Never in my entire life did I think I would be seeing the Pyramids. Never in my life did I think I'd be setting foot in Africa. We had booked an excursion from the ship to go to Cairo on the first day to see the Pyramids and the tombs, among other things. So we took a long bus ride, over 2 hours, south of Alexandria to Cairo.

They pyramids were amazing and HUGE! I thought they were out in the middle of nowhere; however, they were right on the edge of the city of Cairo. In the pictures below, the Great Pyramid, the largest one, is on the far left. The middle one at the top still has a cover of limestone on it. Apparently they were, at one time, covered in limestone, but the Egyptians chipped it away so they could use it.


After that, we went down close to the Pyramids and got some time to wander. We bought tickets to enter the middle one and saw the tomb inside (cameras weren't allowed). The pathway was low, but we didn't have to crawl, which is apparently what you have to do in the Great Pyramid. They advised against going inside if you were claustrophobic, which I am, but I knew I'd kick myself if I didn't go. And since it wasn't the height of tourist season, there weren't many people inside.

After being at the Pyramids, we drove a few hundred meters down to see the Sphinx, which I also didn't know was that close to the Pyramids. It sits right below.

From there we stopped at a hotel and had lunch. After that, we drove to what used to be the ancient capital of lower Egypt called Memphis and saw the ruins there. The ruins included a huge statue of Ramses II and the Alabaster Sphinx.

Our final stop before the papyrus institute was the oldest pyramid in Egypt. The Sakkara pyramids. Cow transport

Thrilled to still be on the bus.

The second day in Egypt we had a tour of Alexandria booked. (Luckily, this one wasn't over 10 hours on a bus.) I saw a lot of stuff, but I don't really remember what some of it was. The problem with these bus tours was that you were on the bus more than you were off. The tour guide would say what we were stopped at and then usually, "you have 10 minutes--enough to make a picture."




After we left Egypt our next port the very next day was Limassol, Cyprus. It's a really small city, but we walked around and saw a few things since we were only in port for a few hours. Aaaaaand, then we stopped for a beer and lunch.

Olive oil press

The next port was Rhodes, Greece and quite possibly our absolute favorite. The city was cute and unique, plus we had one of the most amazing meals I've ever had in my entire life. We walked around and saw some things on the map, but really meandering was the best thing to do. We were all starting to get hungry, but before we grabbed lunch, we all really wanted to see the temple of Aphrodite. It wasn't as exciting as we had hoped.

Temple of Aphrodite

We sought out this restaurant Brandon found in a travel book, but when we got there and knocked on the door, this old man in broken English told us he was closed. However, he told us how to find another local's restaurant. All 6 of us heard something different and since we didn't understand Greek, we took the direction he gave us and found the place he was talking about. The owner, Theodore, insisted that if there were any of us who didn't want to eat there (initially 3 said they didn't want seafood and would find something else), that they not eat at any of the tourist restaurants where they try to get you to eat. He said those places were embarrassing to the city and the food was horrible. We all stayed and we sure were glad we did.

The food at Theodore's was amazing! The tzatziki was delicious, the calamari was probably the best I've ever had, the salad was so fresh, and the mussel dish was incredible. We also had the house wine, which was some of the best table wine I've had and at the end of the meal he gave us some homemade limoncello.

The restaurant owner, Theodore, and his dog Zeus.

The happy group with happy bellies.

Limoncello!!!!

Theodore managed to get some of his house wine into a 1.5L water bottle, which we smuggled on to the ship and promptly drank. He also gave us a second round of limoncello, since he saw we liked it so much

The next port I was really looking forward to was Athens, Greece. Never thought I'd see that stuff either. We (6) all crammed into a taxi and went to the center of all of the ruins--the Parthenon. We wandered around there, then had an obligatory gyro for lunch, saw the Temple of Zeus, and the original Olympic stadium. Amazing.

Temple of Zeus

Second round of gyros

Our last port before we had to come home was Palermo, Sicily (Italy). Palermo was not enjoyable. In fact, Amy, Will, Dave, and I decided that we disliked it so much that after 2 hours, we came back on the boat for lunch and didn't get off again. The boat was sailing at 6 that night. The best pictures I have of Palermo are from the ship.


We did have a lot of fun together and rarely acted like adults (as documented below). We made friends with a bartender, which was beneficial to all of us and to him (tips). When we weren't in a port somewhere exploring, we were probably laughing. I have great friends and wonderful memories; I'm very lucky.

Will, me Brandon, Amy, Dave, Alicesara, and two guys we met Brett and Spencer

Eating rich people food and being rich.

So that's it in a nutshell. I'm going to have all of my pictures up and linked here once I go through everyone's and combine what I like.