Finishing Up

I'm really (maybe) close to having access to the pictures on my camera, so I'll finish up posting about Europe in the next several weeks and go back through the blog to supplement the information I posted while I was traveling.

If you don't receive the blog posts in a reader, check for the following labels on the sidebar:

Posted Post-Trip - Brand new posts added chronologically after the trip (like this one)
Text Added - Existing posts I've improved (I hope) with text
Photos Added - Existing posts with photos added

Otherwise, I'm back to my normal blog.

Thanks for your interest and all of your comments while I was away!

The Best Photo

I was labeling photos from Europe this morning and found this one, which may be the best photo I have ever taken. It's from the parking lot at Tintern Abbey. I was so taken with Welsh that I was snapping pictures of the bilingual signs and ended up with this one. That's undoubtedly the Rick Steves Great Britain book cradled in my arm.

False Hope

You know how I keep promising photos? Guess who left her camera in Scotland?

Scotland Redux

I visited Scotland twice on my trip. The first time around I met Steve and that is why there was a second visit to Scotland at the end of the trip. I forgot to bring my camera on our adventures almost every single day, so I have, for example, no pictures of the terrible, terrible, narrow bridge we had to cross to visit Steve's ancestral home. And I have no pictures of New Lanark (the first project of Robert Owen, whose second utopian mill society, New Harmony, I visited in Indiana; New Harmony does not include a Disney-esque ride through the utopian mill society experience, narrated by a ghost, though) or the House of Dun or Dunkeld Cathedral or most of the places we went.

I do have

The Den

The Den is an old, pagany site in Dunino. This is a pool and a hollowed out footprint that were likely used for ancient coronation ceremonies or, depending on who you believe, human sacrifices.

And Seaton Cliffs

I took this picture before I realized that we weren't to the really picturesque part yet and then I didn't pull my camera back out when we did reach the prettiest parts--cliffs and caves on the North Sea.

And the Hermitage

Steve at the Hermitage. This area of Scotland looks like Tennessee.

Wales is Pretty, Yes?

These are some of the sites we visited in Wales.

We rode the train up the coast to Harlech Castle, and it rained all over us. Harlech Castle is a fantastic ruin, though.

Kirsten and I peek out from beneath an arch where we were waiting for Stash. After visiting the castle, we asked a local for a treat recommendation and took refuge in an ice cream shop.

This is the beach at Aberystwyth. "Aberystwyth" is fun to say.

Aberystwyth Castle - Please note the beautiful, blue sky. In Wales.

View from Aberystwyth Castle

Dyfi River - close to the resort where we stayed.

Dyfi River on the way into Machyllneth, the town where we caught the train and went to market and which is an impossible name to pronounce.

We found some sort of pagan stone circle on one of our many hikes through the Welsh countryside.

Cymru

The UK has introduced me to two new things I love. (I know, they've already given us so much, right? Digestive biscuits, Shakespeare, The Vicar of Dibley, crumpets (I ate three today). They're a nation of givers. Except for the bus driver who gouged us on Monday, telling me the fare to Machynlleth was 2.40 instead of 2.00, so I had to go rummaging through my bag for my envelope of coins--Romanian coins, European coins, Turkish coins, British coins--which, naturally ripped apart when I pulled it from my bag, scattering coins ALL over the bus floor and delaying our departure, when really the fare IS 2.00 and I could have purchased a second delicious treat at the bakery with that 40p he charged me and maintained my dignity on the morning bus. Except for him, they're a nation of givers.)

1. Fuchsias--Somehow, I don't think I've ever seen these flowers before, but they're all over Wales.

2. Seaweed Peanut Crackers--I imagine that these did not actually originate in Britain, but it's where I found them and came to love them. They're little ball-shaped crackers and there's a single peanut inside each one. They're fantastic. Unless they're in your backpack during a terrible storm at Harlech Castle and they get wet. A soggy seaweed peanut cracker is no good at all.

Completely unrelated--I met a sheep farmer and quizzed him about his sheep dogs. He doesn't enter them in trials, because they refuse to run uphill. They jump on the ATV in the morning and then herd DOWN.

Saturday I'm off to Scotland and then I'll be back in the US with a USB drive and all the promised pictures from the trip will actually appear on the blog.

Wales

We're in Wales, staying in an 18th century mansion that's been converted into condos. The bathtub is the perfect size and shape in which to read and you can step right outside the door and grab yourself a sheep--the place is overrun with them. Much to our amazement it has been sunny and beautiful in Wales, so we've been able to go hiking up the green, green hills to see the Roman steps and lovely vistas.

Kirsten and I have seen enough castles to keep us happy for a good long while, but Stash is visiting from Texas (a castle-free state), so tomorrow we're going to hunt down a Welsh castle for her.

Just another week and a half before I return to the States. Eeek.

Mont St. Michel (part un)

Standing in a French train station:

Kirsten: So, worst case scenario?

MBC: Worst case scenario: we don't see Mont St. Michel. We just spend the night NEAR Mont St. Michel and get to St. Malo in time for the ferry tomorrow.

MANY HOURS LATER

Kirsten: Worst case scenario: we see Mont St. Michel hauling our luggage on our backs.

France does not believe in baggage storage.


Guernsey does.

Guernsey

Kirsten and I stayed on Guernsey for two nights. If you haven't read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society yet, you should do that immediately. It's excellent fiction, and it explains the German occupation of Guernsey in WWII.

This is Cornet Castle, an ancient fortress in the harbor. It was used for defensive purposes from the 13th century to 1947.

This is a tower that was built to commemorate a royal visit to the island.

St. Peter Port

The Little Chapel is a miniature replica of Lourdes Basilica, created from broken china and seashells. It's big enough to walk through comfortably (barely), and the detail is amazing.

St. Malo

Kirsten and I spent a day in St. Malo, a French port town where we caught our ferry to Guernsey. It's a beautiful town.


First we took care of some business and found a laundromat. Kirsten did some amazing, in-laundromat, quick changing so she could wash the pants she was wearing. Afterwards we found a hotel that would take our bags and store them for us, even though France has a security policy that prohibits baggage storage. The girl working at the hotel was British. She may not have been familiar with the policy.


St. Malo has a section of town surrounded by the old city walls. We found a bakery and bought baguettes to eat on top of the walls.


From the walls, there are views out to small surrounding islands and fortresses. The little islandy-formation in the background behind Kirsten was closed to the public because a film crew was working there.


This is a fortress off the coast of St. Malo.


We hiked down to the beach and investigated the fortress. This is the view facing away from the fortress.


This is a street sign in St. Malo. I would love to know how it was named. I hope there was really a dancing cat involved.


Oh, and we ate these yummy pastries in St. Malo too.

Bucovina Monasteries

I'm in Guernsey after several action-packed days. I don't have time to post about Italy and France right now, but here are some pictures from one of the painted monasteries I visited in Romania. Better posting when things slow down!

[We visited four monasteries--Humor, Voronet, Moldovita, and Sucevita. They were all built between 1488 and 1601, and they are stunning with their top to bottom paintings.]

Sucevita Monastery Exterior

Nuns at Sucevita Trading Candy

Monastery Detail

I love the representation of cherubim (the red, winged figure in the middle) in this painting style. We also saw them in Meteora.

I think this graffiti is really fascinating, because some of it's dated 1890. People have always been jerks.

This tree is at Sucevita and it was covered in bees. I think it suits the monastery. It looks very Biblical to me.

Mont St. Michel, Part Deux

Legend says that Michael the Archangel instructed St. Aubert to build a church on the island where Mont St. Michel Abbey is now located. Hence the name and hence the statue.

St. Michel

This is a small part of the Grand Hall. At one time it was painted and decorated quite elaborately for guests to the abbey. The fireplaces are huge. They're fun to stand in.

This is a monk wheel, like a gerbil wheel. It's a human-powered way to pull a sledge up and down from the abbey.

This is a view from the monk wheel room out to the flats around the island.

I always love cloisters.

This is the B&B about 20 minutes from Mont St. Michel where Kirsten and I stayed. The owners were British and the community is a little English stronghold. We ate at an English pub the night we stayed there.

The Happiest Place on Earth

Kirsten and I spent two nights in Vernazza and could happily have spent the rest of our lives there. It's one of the Cinque Terre, five towns on Italy's northern riviera that are connected by a hiking trail (a hiking trail that is mostly lovely except for the last bit we did that made me want to cry when I realized how many steps UP it involved).

This is the view of Vernazza from the hiking trail. See the reddish building behind all the umbrellas on the square? That's where we stayed. And see that pretty sea down there? That's where we rewarded ourselves for our hours of hiking (and where I cut up my foot on rocks).

This is the delicious strawberry and chocolate panna cotta we ate at my favorite Italian restaurant, Il Pirata. We ate breakfast there the morning we were planning to leave, but then we postponed our departure to Milan so we could eat lunch there as well.

I need to go back to Vernazza.

I'm in Italy

I love Italians and their delicious food products even though they are all far more beautiful and well-dressed than I am. I ate a plum today that was so good that I feel inspired to write an ode.

Stolen Photos

These are photos from Romania that I stole from other volunteers on my team.

This is the hotel where we lived.

Iunela is very sweet with all the babies. Whether they like it or not. Petre used to get propped up like this when he was being introduced to the concept of tummy time. It always made him look so pathetic.

This is Alina, the tiniest girl in the world. She has fetal alcohol syndrome and weighs a mere 10.5 pounds. Remarkably, she can walk and zips all over the place.

This is Alex. She has brittle bone disease. She's a great fan of magazine reading.

I think Iunela looks hilarious when she wears this little outfit.

Andrei is not a solemn kid, but he always looks solemn in pictures.

If he had his way, Andrei would be snuggled up like this all the time.
I look like a dentist when I wear this particular scrub top.

This is the preschool teacher who comes to the hospital in the afternoons and works with the older kids. She is so fantastic at her job. I learned to count to 4 in Romanian by being on the playground with her. When I told her that (through an interpreter) at our going away party, she told me that next year I can come back and she'll teach me the rest of my numbers.