Ireland

Touring Europe - UK : Edinburgh

Sun, 22 May 2011 09:52:02 -0700

Around the end of March we decided that Sara would stay in California when we went back for a visit in May. Until then, our schedule was jam-packed with a week-long cruise in the Mediterranean and several friends coming to visit. So, with the final free weekend to ourselves quickly approaching, we planned a last-minute weekend trip to Edinburgh at the end of March. Scotland had been on our list for a while (and I had really wanted go to the Highlands), but we opted for a weekend just in Edinburgh (with the Highlands having to come another time).

RyanAir made flight booking easy, and good ol’ Rick Steves made B&B and sightseeing-planning even easier. We left late Friday afternoon and took a quick 45 min flight right into Edinburgh. We caught a taxi with a delightful lady driving, and she briefed us on the city as we made our way to the B&B.

The taxi drive was great. Edinburgh is a nice little city, and we drove through a university area with a huge, nice park - everyone was out enjoying themselves - pleasant.

Also, the weather that day was amazing - sunny and actually warm.

The proprietor of the B&B we stayed at was just as delightful - we got all checked into our room and were offered some tablet, a kind of sugary, shortbready, caramely deliciousness. I couldn’t enough of this stuff.

We immediately headed into town, and continued to love it. City centre is a great area, the Royal Mile being the main street. At the top you can see all of the way down the hill to the bay. We took in the sights, sounds, and shops, grabbed some Italian food, had a few drinks, and then headed back to the B&B.

Saturday was the big sightseeing day, as we had an early flight back to Dublin Sunday morning. We toured the Edinburgh Castle which was huge, awesome, and featured great views of the city. We got to see some crown jewels too.

After that, we wandered the Royal Mile some more, eating lunch, checking out more shops, and stopping for a little Irn Bru. This is an orange Scottish soda that tastes sort of like bubble gum - it’s weird but addictive.

After that we took a tour of Mary King’s Close. So basically, in the way old days, Edinburgh was a crazy cramped city with people living in tiny cramped “apartments” on streets/alleys (i.e., a close) barely 1 person wide. They built some new city on top of this. So now you get to go down into the old close on this cheesy tour that turns out to be really interesting. This tour is a must I think.

We grabbed another snack, saw some cathedral, stuck our head into a pretty sweet whisky shop (whisky, not whiskey), and then headed out to the hills and crags just outside the city. This was really nice - a 20 min walk from the Royal Mile and we were amongst hills, rocks, ponds, ducks, dogs, and quiet. We saw Arthur’s Seat (the biggest hill) and made our way back to the B&B for some much-needed relief for our feet.

That night we wandered close-by for some Thai food and Scotch Whisky, and then finally turned in. The B&B proprietor had a packed breakfast ready to go for our early flight the next morning, which was fantastic.

Overall, Edinburgh was crazy nice. It had a really good vibe to it, lots of really nice people, and we had a fantastic time. I highly, highly recommend a quick trip to this city. Just wish we had made it north to the Highlands for some hiking.

LOGISTICS:
We took a RyanAir flight direct from Dublin to Edinburgh. From there, we took a taxi to our B&B. Edinburgh is small and manageable, so the rest of the time we just walked everywhere, only needing to take a bus once. We stayed at the Airdenair Guest House - a little bit away from the city centre (about 20 min walk) but highly-recommended.

PHOTOS:
Edinburgh Photos

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SARA’S BLOG:
Edinburgh

Living in Dublin - St. Patrick's Day

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 06:03:04 -0700

In the States, St. Patrick’s Day (Paddy’s Day) is a big deal with drinkings, rivers dyed green, and a mass Irish frenzy. Everyone always talks about how awesome it would be to be in Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day.

So we were here in Dublin on Paddy’s Day, and it was okay. They of course don’t do it as big here because it’s just some random holiday glorified in the US, but they did have a parade.

The parade was more an artsy parade that was supposed to follow the plot line of a short story about Ireland’s economic woes. Instead the parade was just a random mish-mash of stuff that looked like the rejects of a Rio de Janeiro Carnival parade. It was weird.

There were lots of kids, and one girl next to use (couldn’t have been more than 3 or 4) kept yelling out “Excuse me, but what are they supposed to be?” and “Excuse me, but what’s going on?” We were all thinking the same thing.

After waiting an extra hour for the parade to start, we gave it a chance and then just went to eat lunch and drink a few beers around town, a much better option.

There were lots of tourists (I mean lots) out and about wearing green, but the atmosphere was pretty good and the weather was decent that day. I wouldn’t say Paddy’s Day was an amazing & awesome experience, but we had a good time.

And this year it was on a Thursday which meant there was no way anyone was going to go to work on Friday which basically meant a 4 day weekend for most. Check out the pics for some of the weirdness of the parade. That’s all.

PHOTOS:
Paddy’s Day Photos

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SARA’S BLOG:
St. Patrick’s Day

Touring North America - Cancun & Back Home

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 09:14:04 -0700

So this is another belated entry, and definitely not an entry about touring Europe. I’m backlogged on blogs, so I’ll try to make this short.

I got accepted to a conference for work in Cancun. Important detail: the conference was in Cancun in January. Tired of the dark, the bitter winter, and everything else, a trip to Cancun was a mental and physical escape, and there was no way Sara was going to let me go without her.

Towards the end of January, we got on a plane and were on our way. January is the off-season in Cancun, but it was still fantastic. We arrived to warm temperatures, sunny skies, warm ocean water (the ocean was like 22ºC), and Mexican food and beer - all things that were sorely missed.

We stayed at the Hyatt for a truly normal and nice hotel experience. There is a little island/peninsula off the coast of Cancun proper known as the hotel zone, where our hotel was. I’m pretty sure this whole little island is fake and built-up using barges to bring in sand, but it didn’t matter - the beach was way nice. And it was sunny.

We ate lots of good Mexican food (amazing ceviche) and delicious breakfast buffets and drank lots of good margaritas and cerveza. We did this both on and off the beach. Yes it was awesome.

And of course I went to the conference too. I got there using the Cancun bus system, which was a little crazy. It was like $0.50 US to use the bus, and the bus drivers treat their buses (at least 30 year-old buses) like race cars. It’s nuts.

The one excursion we did while in Cancun was to Chichen Itza, an ancient Mayan ruin a few hours outside of Cancun; it’s a wonder of the world. We boarded a bus, drank some beer on the bus, and got lots of good info from our tour guide. The tour around the ancient city ruins was cool, and we learned all about the astronomy stuff the Mayans had figured out. We also saw what was left of the local Mayan people - a now poor community that depends almost exclusively on tourism. It was pretty interesting.

We got tans and filled up on food, and then headed to the Bay Area. It was like $50 more to go through SF on the way to Dublin for some reason, so this is what we did. We had an awful travel experience (long story short, 5 hours in Cancun airport, spent the night in North Carolina, and got to the Bay Area a day late) but finally made it there.

Because of our delay, we tried to get our flights changed to leave back to Dublin later than originally scheduled. This resulted in another delay - so we were stuck in the Bay Area a few extra days, which wasn’t really anything to complain about but was still annoying.

I love flying into the Bay Area - so much to see from the plane. We landed, my parents picked up us, and we headed straight to the Karaffa’s brand new house in Fairfield. It is really, really nice.

There is not really anything interesting to add after that. We just hung out in the Bay Area with nothing to do and having a great time - saw friends, went wine tasting in the Napa Valley (of course), ate a lot of food (biscuits and gravy and eggs and bacon for breakfast anyone?), and spent time with the families. Sara’s brother Matt even drove up from LA to visit for a day. Napa was a highlight - we tasted at Trefethen and Cuvaison and ate lunch at the Rutherford Grill. Amazing all around.

This trip was a much needed break from Dublin, and it made us realize how much we really miss home. Also, I Tweeted a lot.

We made it back to Dublin safe and sound, and realized that at that point we had made it through the worst of the winter. The coming months would see a drastic increase in both temperature and amount of sunlight.

LOGISTICS:
Stayed at the Hyatt in the hotel zone in Cancun. There’s a crazy little bus that takes you up and down the hotel zone that is scary but cheap and easy. The tour we took was just randomly found and booked online. That’s about it.

PHOTOS:
Cancun & Bay Area Photos

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SARA’S BLOG:
Cancun

Touring Europe - UK : London

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 09:10:44 -0800

I started writing this entry a while back, and am just now getting to finishing it up. Probably not so interesting to hear about New Year’s now that it’s basically March, but oh well. So here we go.

Luckily, all of the snow and everything thawed out a day or two before we headed to London. So, we didn’t have any problem catching our flight out of Dublin.

We planned for 4 days in London over New Years, which meant we would have to pack it all in, as London is huge. We let our good friend Rick Steves guide us and, as usual, he did a great job.

After a quick 45 min flight, we landed in Heathrow and found our way to the Underground. Yes, mind the gap and all that. The tube really is a tube though - some of the trains are tiny.

It took a whole hour to get to our hotel near Victoria station, which in itself gave us an idea just how huge London is - 1 hour train ride and we still weren’t quite in the center of it all. Although I found London to be pretty huge and crowded, it was nice to be back in a civilised place again. You know, little to no vomit or dog crap in the sidewalks, easy-to-decipher public transport with maps, and normal decent food.

We grabbed some Vietnamese food for lunch, and headed straight to the Tower of London area, just east of the true center of everything. The weather was dreary but not too cold - above freezing (which at that point felt warm to us). I didn’t really know what any of the iconic tourist things were called, so we visited some of them and got it all sorted out. The Tower of London is not the famous bridge itself, but the castle/fortress next to it. The iconic bridge is called the Tower Bridge. And this is not to be confused with the London Bridge, which is just a boring normal bridge.

We walked along the River Thames, enjoyed the sights, and worked up a good appetite. We made our way back towards our hotel and stopped in a corny, tacky, but delicious Italian place.

The next day we woke up early and headed straight to Westminster Abbey. This place was awesome! It’s a really old, really big church where basically all British royalty have been crowned and buried. And there are loads of other cool dead people there too. My favourite was the main altar currently in use, of which one side has the remains of Newton and on the other side Darwin. Cool. Finally, the place was beautiful and the audio tour very well done. This is a must see sight.

The next stops were many and varied, but included the Churchill War Rooms and museum. This was so cool - the actual secret, underground bunkers where the Brits ran WWII. I can’t even imagine all of the crazy stuff that went on down there, but for me it was another must-see sight. Also, might have been WWII but Churchill still had a nice bed and fancy chairs.

There are a lot of other things we saw but I won’t go into them - London has a ton of stuff to see and enough to keep you busy for a long time. Museums, sites, restaurants, and more. We were really enjoying ourselves.

The next day (New Year’s Eve!) we wandered over to Buckingham palace to watch the changing of the guard. Lame, don’t even both with this. Already I’ve written more that is worth writing about it.

For New Year’s Eve, we signed up for a dinner and fireworks river cruise. This was mainly to make sure we did something for New Years that wasn’t clubbing and being mobbed with people. So we headed over to the dinner, which was okay but not great, and then wandered down to the docks for our boat. Turns out the boat was just really a river commuter clipper, but because it wasn’t full, it was okay. We boated up and down the river, and then found our position for the fireworks show.

With champagne in hand, we watched the most awesome and massive fireworks display we’d ever seen. We rang in the New Years big, and had a great time doing it. Seriously though, the fireworks were massive.

The next day, we wandered around the city a bit more, found a great book store dedicated just to traveling, had some delicious fish and chips (had to), and then caught our evening flight back to Dublin.

Overall, London is big but fun, has a lot to offer, and we had a great time. It’s also a fantastic place to be if you want to ring in the New Year in a big way. Here’s to what 2011 will bring!

LOGISTICS:
We flew direct from Dublin to London via Aer Lingus - they are always trusty and easy. After landing, we got an Oyster card (lets you use the tube & buses) and took the tube from the airport to Victoria station. Then we walked to our hotel, the Luna Simone. The hotel was nice, included breakfast, and was in a good location - recommended. From there, we just took the bus and tube everywhere - the maps make it easy. The dinner and cruise we just booked online.

PHOTOS:
London Photos

RELATED TWEETS:
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SARA’S BLOG:
London

Living in Dublin - Xmas (and snow and ramblings too)

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 07:42:53 -0800

Just had some coffee. This entry is gonna ramble on, I can just feel it.

So, let’s see here. Been a while. When we last left off, it was snowing like a mother (and we all know how much they snow). I had taken some awesome pictures, and the fun of the snow had worn off.

Well, the misery pretty much continued, with the city remaining crippled. My commute time continued to hover around 1 hour, although the snow has more or less stopped. A few inches of ice covered all of the sidewalks for a little added fun; knew I should have brought my crampons and ice axe.

The city was running out of water (obviously all of the salt and grit was already gone), and apparently blood supplies were low. This was surprising to me, as ER visits were at an all-time high thanks to all of the ice-covered walkways, sidewalks, and stairs. I figured they’d just pull a litre or 2 of blood out of whoever was lounging around the ER. Don’t know what they call the emergency room here, but I don’t think they call it the ER.

Christmas was coming soon, and Sara & I had long before decided to do a big New Years Eve in Europe. We had thought about Paris, among other places. And we had thought about going to visit my good friend Régis who would be home in Perpignan visiting his family. Long story short, it’s a pain in the ass (and expensive) trying to get to Perpignan from Dublin around the holidays. This sucks, because I was really looking forward to seeing Régis and his home. We ended up “settling” on Christmas in Dublin, followed by New Years in London (thanks to cheap Aer Lingus flights). It’s okay, because we never would have made it to Perpignan around Christmas anyways (read on to find out why!).

So the week after the first snowstorm dragged by. Finally Dec. 17th came. We had a lab dinner (organised by Ana - thanks!) at a local Italian place (and it’s actually Italian and pretty good). This was a good time, with drinks, pizzas, and Christmas crackers. This got the festive season started right.

To make things even more festive, Sara had decorated the apartment with much success. Even though we were away from home it really felt like Christmas. Plus our running water hadn’t yet been shut off (an early Christmas miracle).

The next week I went in to work on Monday. It started to snow again around 3 PM, and I was like “peace out” because I was not gonna get stuck walking home again. By the time I got to city centre, chaos had already grabbed hold. Buses were doing crazy things, and the Luas had stopped running. Apparently the Luas problem was due to a police car hitting someone on the track. I walked past the crazy (through the snow along with everyone else) and decided whatever was next to the oxygen bottle under the blanket that no one was tending to was probably a dead body.

I can’t confirm this as there was not a single report of anything in the news surrounding this event. Cover-up anyone? If my friend Mary was around she’d have a conspiracy theory cooked up for this one in a flash.

Then it just snowed a whole lot more - like you could measure the snow on the ground in feet. Tuesday was a snow day off. I was meant to be on vacation starting Thursday, so at that point, might as well just work from home the rest of the week. Got stuff done too anyways - was probably more productive than going in.

The airports closed again, people died, and all that kind of stuff. And this snowstorm was a real doozy as it was so close to Christmas. In all fairness though, it wasn’t just Ireland that couldn’t handle it. Pretty much all of Europe shut down. 6 hour queue to take the Chunnel train from London to Paris anyone?

Oh, and it was really damn cold too. Like -15 ºC = ~15 ºF cold. That is, without argument, cold. Sara & I didn’t sign up for that cold.

Luckily, Sara had planned all of the Xmas meals and stocked us up with food and drink. We put our warm clothes on, blasted the heaters, drank, ate, and watched the misery go on through the TV.

We started with Pinwanswathen on Christmas Eve Eve - this is obviously a holiday focused on everything non-Christmas and swine. If you don’t know what Pinwanswathen is, Google it (you won’t find much). We cooked a proper Irish breakfast and had more delicious pork for dinner, but no festive games.

The next day (Xmas eve) we had French toast for breakfast, followed by a delicious meat and cheese platter for Xmas eve dinner. We consumed wine and other drinks along the way. Warm Glühwein was featured.

It continued to snow. People were trapped all over the place. They told people at the Dublin airport to leave, even though they didn’t have a place to go. Obviously the airport was completely shut down.

The best part (ready for some mind-blowing?) is that the Dublin airport is always closed Christmas day! And even though thousands of passengers were still stranded (and it was sunny and not-snowing Christmas day) they still remained closed. Peeps take their holidays way serious here. And the folks without water that were relying on trucks to come around so they could fill up? Well, you can’t expect the suppliers to work on Christmas, can you? Hopefully Santa brought those people some water so they could drink and use the toilet.

Santa Sara visited our house and brought chocolates Christmas day. We ate Sara’s yummy raspberry crumble cake for breakfast along with mimosas, and then had a traditional (for us anyways) turkey dinner with all the fixins. More drink too. It was a good time. And it was actually sunny that day (but bitterly cold).

We were lucky to have water, power, and internet our whole break. And Sara had the apartment stocked so we didn’t have to deal too much with the snow. We got to talk to our families on Christmas day, and we didn’t do too bad either on all of the Christmas cards we got. I also probably gained around 10 lbs.

Overall, a decent Christmas away from home, but after about a week and a half or so of being apartment-locked, we had a bit of cabin fever. Our upcoming visit to London for New Years was just what the doctor ordered.

Another thing I never figured out was the holidays off. I think the only official holiday was the Monday after Christmas? But there was loads of stuff closed (some obviously due to the snow) for a long time. I’d say this whole city didn’t really get back to normal again until this past week - Jan. 10th. So, basically the whole city shuts down for about 3 weeks, not 3 days.

Oh, and as of today (Jan. 16th or whatever) there are plenty of peeps out there still without water. For the most part, the ones lucky enough to still have water (like us) usually have it shut off from 7 PM to 7 AM everyday. I think if Dublin gets another round of snow like that this winter season, the city will just freeze off the map.

Final note, you can see from all of my “vintage” photos that I bought the Hipstamatic app from iTunes for my iPhone. I know I can do all of this with Photoshop, but for some reason Hipstamatic is just fun and I like it. Big deal.

PHOTOS:
Dublin Christmas Photos

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Living in Dublin - Snow!

Sat, 4 Dec 2010 07:59:29 -0800

It never snows here in Dublin. Or at least it very rarely snows. And the coldest is really ever gets is around freezing. If it’s below freezing here, that’s rare.

Or that’s what everyone has told me so far about Dublin. Turns out that’s not so correct, at least not during this past week.

We heard about Dublin getting snow while we were in Germany, but didn’t think too much of it. We figured there was a freak storm, they got a little bit, and that it would melt soon.

After our 2 hour delay we flew into Dublin and could see from the air how wrong we were. The whole island was covered in snow, looking something like this (thanks @umbrella_office). It was a pretty sweet sight.

On the ground we could see that the snow had really stuck. We went home and quickly rushed out to play in Phoenix Park. Californians don’t often get to see snow in their cities, and so we get excited by things like this. We also figured we better go see it before it melts. And the lighting was perfect in the late afternoon, making for some pretty nice photos.

We had a good time and then came back home. And then it started snowing again. It kept snowing and snowing and sticking as the week went on. You could feel the city starting to choke. Buses were taking forever and traffic was awful. This place just wasn’t built to handle this much real snow. After all, it’s not supposed to do this here.

Then came Wednesday. It had snowed all night again. I woke up to go to work and slipped and fell on ice first thing out the apartment gate. All of the public transport was behind. I should have just gone straight back home as I had thought to do (see Tweet 6 below).

But I didn’t, and it kept snowing. And conditions worsened. And then around the afternoon I thought you know, I should go home. This day is done. As I was packing up my things Sara called to say I should come home. She said O’Connell street is chaos, with lots of buses pulled over.

Within the next 30 mins the entire city basically shut down. All buses stopped running, the airport closed, and taxis stopped running. The roads were all covered in ice. Now we got to walk home. So with Robin and Charles from the lab, we all walked home.

It was a 1.5 hour hike through snow and chaos. Congested traffic. No buses or taxis to catch. Cars skidding out. People throwing snowballs. Loads of people walking home like Zombies. It really was a crazy mood.

We made it back down to city centre, and met Sara and her cousin Michelle at the local pub for some pints. It was clear no one was going to work tomorrow, and probably not the rest of the week. Michelle got quite a weird Dublin visit.

The potent combination of hiking in the cold and not eating dinner (at least not before starting to drink) led to a hungover Thursday snow day. I managed to fall in the bathroom and hurt my back, which just added to the pain of the hangover on Thursday. It snowed all day again Thursday, big time again. The buses, airport, and taxis all remained essentially shutdown.

Finally on Friday the snow started to let up. But Friday was another snow day and recovery day.

Today, Saturday, it looks like things are starting to melt and the worst is over, but you never know. The weather has made this whole week pretty interesting. I’ll update this if we get more nutty weather.

PHOTOS:
Dublin Snow Photos

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Touring Europe - Germany : Christmas Markets

Sat, 4 Dec 2010 03:58:54 -0800

We took a quick, long-weekend trip to Germany over what would normally be our Thanksgiving weekend. We were excited to check out the German Christmas Markets and also distract ourselves from the fact that we would, for the first time, not be celebrating Thanksgiving.

We started out by heading to the airport and having a few pints of Thanksgiving Guinness. After that, we boarded our plane to Düsseldorf. After an easy 1.5 hour plane ride, we landed in Germany.

We collected our bags and were greeted by one of Sara’s old high-school friends Holly. She is living in Germany along with her husband Chris (he is doing a post-doc in Germany but was out of town - bummer we didn’t get to meet) and their almost-3-year-old daughter Daisy (who was also there to greet us).

Sara & I were both glad Holly was there to guide us through the train system. I speak absolutely no German, but Sara speaks a little. Either way, there seemed like a lot of ways to mess up and buy the wrong train ticket.

We hopped on the train and after 45 mins were in their town of Mülheim an der Ruhr. We walked up the hill through the quaint town to their apartment. We got settled in and went to bed.

Luckily, Holly had a plan for us, which worked out for the whole trip. So the next day we headed to Köln (Cologne) to see the amazing Kölner Dom cathedral there and also check out the Christmas market (or Weihnachtsmarkt). The cathedral was amazing, and after taking a tour around we headed outside to the markets. It was very cold as there was a dusting of snow on everything from the night before, but it just added to the winter feel.

At the markets, we ate Reibekuchen (fried potato fritters) with applesauce, drank Glühwein (mulled, spiced red wine) and more. We enjoyed the stalls and stands, all of the foods, and really had a great time. The atmosphere at the Christmas Markets is great.

We headed down the way from the Cathedral to the Alter Markt, ate some more good food, and bought a few Christmas decorations (nutcrackers, pyramids, and incense smoking men). The wooden toy figurines, or Räuchermann (smoking men), we got are classic Christmas for me, as we had them growing up. You take their torsos off, place a cone of incense inside, and put them back together. As the incense burns the smoke comes out of their pipes. A great way to expose kids at an early age to the joys of smoking I guess.

Anyways. Also, I left my credit card at one of the stalls on accident. I had to cancel it, which means the dude that sold us the stuff isn’t gonna get paid. We realised this much later and tried to figure out how to contact him, but no luck. We felt pretty bad about this.

After the markets, we walked along the Rhine river a bit, and headed to the Chocolate Museum. This place was pretty cool, and we learned a lot about cacao. After that, a snack was in order (we hadn’t eat in at least 1.5 hours), and so Holly took us to a classic German place where we enjoyed some delicious beer along with a bacon pancake, or Speckpfannkuchen. This thing was so good, and with the beer it was amazing.

After such a long day of rigorous shopping and eating of food, we were all tired and headed back to Holly’s place. We grabbed some kebab along the way, and spent the rest of the night relaxing, playing on the MagnaDoodle with Daisy, and watching some Disney movies. Playing with kids is usually pretty fun, and Daisy is pretty sharp for a 2 year old. Good times were had.

The next day, after a breakfast of amazing German baked goods, we headed to Dusseldorf. Dusseldorf was a really cool city, with lots of neat little areas, architecture, markets, restaurants, and more. It had a good feel. We ate more food, drank more drink, and saw more Christmas markets.

We finished off the day wandering around the little neighbourhood Christmas market of Mülheim an der Ruhr - all the locals out socialising and relaxing. This was cool.

The next day we headed home. We had heard that Dublin got some snow on Saturday, but didn’t think much of it (Dublin rarely gets snow). Turns out we were delayed 2 hours because of it, and this was only the beginning of the snow-related chaos. Next blog post will be all about Dublin snow.

Our trip was great, and Holly and Daisy were gracious hostesses allowing us to stay with them and show us around to all of the good places. Thanks so much - it was great! I highly recommend taking a Christmas-Market focused trip to Germany if you can - it really was a lot of fun. And it got us in the Christmas spirit, big time!

LOGISTICS:
We flew direct from Dublin to Dusseldorf via good old Aer Lingus. From there, we just took trains everywhere. It was mostly easy to figure out. Everything else was just walking and exploring!

PHOTOS:
Dusseldorf and Christmas Market Photos

RELATED TWEETS:
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SARA’S BLOG:
German Christmas Markets

Touring Europe - Switzerland : Geneva and CERN

Sun, 7 Nov 2010 11:37:16 -0800

After a fantastic time in Lausanne, we hopped back on the train and took the same nice trip with nice views back to Geneva. We got off at the main station in the center of the city (Gare Cornavin) and walked 10 mins or so where we easily found our hostel. The hostel was nice, and we had booked it based on my previous experience/trip to Geneva some years back.

They said private rooms were available, and so Sara and I ended up in what was really a hotel, but with a pretty sweet breakfast included. That afternoon we wandered around the city a bit, getting our bearings, and realizing that there’s not really that much to do in Geneva.

The city is really nice, pretty, clean, the transport is great and easy to use, and there are lots of restaurants and shopping (very high-end shopping), but that’s about it. We ended up grabbing some Italian food, where my mediocre level of French continued to come in handy (as it had for a few points on our trip), and headed back to the hostel for some R&R.

The next morning was our trip to CERN! So my dad is a particle physicist, which is why I know even the littlest amount of stuff that I know about CERN. In fact, my parents lived in Geneva back in the day while my dad worked at CERN, which is why I was born there. CERN is a basically a big particle physics research organisation, located on the border between Switzerland and France, just outside Geneva. The have just built a big new particle accelerator, known at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), on which they are spinning atomic particles around at pretty much the speed of light (99.9%) until they smash together.

By smashing particles together, they can learn a lot about what makes up the subatomic particles, and what makes up those particles. They are trying to answer some pretty tough questions here, like what causes mass, and thus gravity. No, we don’t actually know what causes mass (I know, right). This is the search for the famous Higgs boson (or God particle) that you’ve maybe heard about. And in case you think this sounds like a waste of time, it’s because of particle physics experiments like this that we have MRI machines, microwaves, and the web. So no, basic science research is not useless.

Okay, so back to the trip. Hans Taureg, one of my dad’s good friends, was gracious enough to give us a tour of the CERN facilities. You will see that it was Hans that gave Pouria and I our CERN tour last trip, 5 years ago.

With our tourist transport cards in hand, we followed Hans’ easy directions and arrived at CERN to meet him. We quickly hopped in his car and headed towards the CERN control center. This place was awesome - this is where they monitor the power usage (massive), the magnets (huge, and cooled to something like 1 Kelvin), and all of the other infrastructure surrounding the 17 mile long main accelerator ring. Yes, the LHC really is L. It was like watching the control room of a NASA shuttle launch or something. Really cool!

Next stop was a big warehouse where they test a lot of the parts that go into the detectors - this was amazing to see. They are building these massive detectors (stories tall) lined with tiny, micron-sized sensors all very well aligned. Aside from all of the science going on, the logistics of all of this just blows my mind. And that the whole thing even half works is amazing.

After that we headed to the ALICE control room, one of the many detectors situated around the ring. There are six of these detectors, each looking to perform slightly different experiments, including ATLAS, the one my dad has been working on and one that hopes to see the Higgs boson.

We then headed back to the main visitor center, where Hans was kind enough to walk us through the exhibits (some of which are very well done), explaining things so we’d have a hope of understanding. The entire CERN visit was really cool, amazing, and mind-blowing. What they are going there is just incredible.

And thanks so much to Hans for taking time off, rearranging his schedule, and showing us and driving us around. THANK YOU!

On the way home on the tram, we saw by random luck and chance a restaurant my parents always talk about: Restaurant de l’Aviation. They are famous for their garlic, butter, and cream sauce that goes well with steak and fries. So, we hopped off the tram, wandered up to the area where the restaurant was (the area was deserted, and we thought it might be closed) and went inside. The place was packed! And the smell of that sauce was in the air. I know it well because my mom has recreated it from scratch, and it is a commonly-requested dish in my house.

We enjoyed delicious steaks with garlic butter, but this was no tourist stop. My French failed me, and we were not able to get the famed sauce. Afterwords, we realized we needed to request the house specialty - “entrecôte caravelle.” Damn. Maybe next time, now that we know the “code word.”

We spent the rest of the day wondering around the city, seeing the water jet (Jet d’Eau) and that was about it for our trip. Although, there was some unfinished business - we walked into a cuckoo clock store and made a wonderful purchase. I had a Swiss cuckoo clock growing up, which I destroyed in the process of growing up, and I’ve always wanted a replacement. It is now proudly, and oddly, hanging on the wall in our Dublin apartment, cuckooing away. Awesome.

Definitely the highlight of the trip was the CERN tour by Hans, but the garlic butter steak and cuckoo clock were pretty cool too. Geneva was nice, worth maybe a day on the way to somewhere else, but definitely worth the stop if you can squeeze in a tour of CERN.

Apologies to Patrick - we weren’t able to get you any souvenir black holes. There has been some problems in the production department there. Although apparently soon they will start making black holes. According to Mary, the reason the LHC has been having some problems is because people have been coming back from the future to sabotage it so it doesn’t destroy the earth. Something to think about :)

LOGISTICS:
We took the train back from Lausanne to the Gare Cornavin, which is the main stop in downtown Geneva. From there we walked to our Youth Hostel 10 mins away - Geneva Youth Hostel. The place was nice, cheap, and included a decent breakfast. And for a bit more Sara and I ended up with our own private room; we recommend it. At the hostel, you get a tourist transport card (Geneva Transport Card) for free, which gives you free transportation on all buses, trams, and boats in the Geneva zone, including the train back to the airport. Too good to be true, but it was great.

PHOTOS:
Geneva & CERN Photos

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Touring Europe - Switzerland : Lausanne

Sun, 7 Nov 2010 10:23:06 -0800

Sara and I were pretty excited for our trip to Switzerland, and we weren’t let down. Taking off from Dublin is always nice, and as we descended into the Geneva airport, we were greeted with breathtaking views of the lake and the snow-capped mountains. Ahh, the motherland (I was born here, albeit as a US citizen, and Siegrist is a very Swiss surname, so this holds a little bit of truth).

After getting off the plane we headed to catch a train to Lausanne. Hey, a user-friendly system with a map and on-time transport. No wonder it’s so expensive...

With little effort we figured out which tickets to get and where to catch our train. The train ride was wonderful - the train was smooth and clean, and we were soon outside Geneva taking in views of the mountains, lake, vineyards, and chalets. So nice. You just had to be there.

After 45 mins, we arrived in Lausanne and headed down the hill to Rodrigo and Carole’s apartment. We were greeted by Carole and their wonderful place, including amazing views of the surroundings. They have a really nice abode in what seems like a quiet part of town, just a 5 min walk to the lake front. Oh, and it has insulation, something many buildings in Dublin seem to lack. It’s amazing how warm a place can be w/o the heater on.

Rodrigo soon arrived home (he is doing a post-doc at EPFL) and we took a walk down along the lake. The views continued to be great, and we saw the waterfront where, during summer, they go swimming and have BBQs. We made our way back to the apartment, where Carole cooked us a delicious pasta dinner and finished the meal with some memorable chocolatey and sugary crepes.

We then headed out for a few drinks on the town before retiring early (Sara and I were tired). We ended up meeting with Jose, another guy who is doing a post-doc at EPFL, who used to work here at the BDI in Dublin. It was quite the random encounter.

We hit the sack early, and the next morning headed out for some hiking. The weather was supposed to be bad, but lucky for us it remained really nice. Carole (who is an expert driver by the way, especially when it comes to parallel parking a manual car on a steep hill) drove us to near Montreux, where we embarked on our hike.

But we didn’t just hike - we hiked Swiss style, which is really something great. You take a train up the mountain and then just walk down, stopping to have a delicious meal of meats, cheeses, and breads. The hike was really, really nice, the views breathtaking, and the simple lunch delicious. So, this easy way of hiking is great, but I have to say, Switzerland has got some steep mountains. Sara & I were really feeling the soreness the next day just from hiking down.

After the hike, we took a leisurely drive back, stopping at the UNESCO World Heritage Vineyards for some great pics, and stopped at Rodrigo’s favourite beer place to grab some delicious Belgium beers.

Dinner that night took us to a classic Swiss restaurant for some raclette (potatoes with melted cheese). The raclette machine they gave us was less than sensible, but the cheese was good and everything was tasty. At this point we were really starting the feel the expensiveness of Switzerland - everything really is quite pricey here. Going from the Swiss Franc to the Euro makes it seem not as bad, but spending US Dollars here you feel the pain.

We took a post dinner stroll through the city to see some of the nightlife, and headed back home a bit early again, tired and sore from the day’s hike.

The next day we headed to Geneva, but being the amazing hosts that Rodrigo and Carole were, they took us to two more sights in Lausanne. First was the Sauvabelin Tower - a cool all-wooden structure perched above Lausanne with great views of the city, and some colorful fall foliage surrounding the area. Our last stop was the cathedral (some incredible stained glass), and finally we grabbed some kebab lunch to enjoy with our Belgium beers.

With the help of Carole and Rodrigo, we put in a full weekend in Lausanne, and loved every minute of it. Our hosts were amazing (THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH!), accommodating, and really made us feel comfortable. And special thanks to Carole for cooking and driving us around! It’s lucky to have great friends in different places. Sara and I were sad to leave, but excited about our upcoming CERN tour in Geneva, our next stop (and next blog post to come).

LOGISTICS:
We took AerLingus from Dublin to Geneva, and then a train from the Geneva Airport to Lausanne. The whole thing was easy to figure out and navigate with little prior planning. It was nice having a car (and Carole to drive us around) in Lausanne, but you could get by just taking the trains and buses and walking, no problem.

PHOTOS:
Lausanne Photos

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Living in Dublin - Going to the Doctor

Sat, 6 Nov 2010 04:10:57 -0700

So I went to the doctor. This wasn’t as hard to figure out as it could have been - Sara had already identified a doctor and figured out how to go there.

However, this required a lot of searching online and calling of numbers by Sara, because why should there be a centralised resource online where you can choose a doctor easily? But at least the doctor Sara found seemed knowledgeable, and was nice and normal.

In case you were interested in my intimate medical details, I have a red skin rash on my left arm. It had been there for a while - thought it was a soap or laundry detergent allergy kind of thing - but after eliminating those variables it persisted, and so I headed to the doctor.

I called and got an appointment the same day easy enough. So I went in, actually met with the doctor (which was nice), and was like “I have a rash.” “Let’s take a look,” the doc said. “Hmm, yes, I think that’s called [fill in the blank with some Latin term I can’t remember].” I said “Okay.” He said “Now, let’s head over to the computer.” Okay, maybe he has some special doctor program on his PC...?

He opens Google, types in the Latin term, and hits search. I’m like what? He sees the boards.ie website in the results (a sort of Irish online community thing since they resist Craigslist here) and is like “Stay away from boards.ie, those are useless.” “Let’s see here,” as he scrolls down the Google results. “Ahh yes, MayoClinic. These are usually pretty good.” Holy crap. He then proceeded to click and read me the entire website, clicking through each section. “Red skin, yes, young adult, yes, that’s you,” he expressed excitedly.

“Treatment, treatment, where’s the treatment section. Ah, here we are. No known cause. Hmm.” He pauses, looks me in the eye, and says “Well, I think conventional medicine is going to let you down on this one.” In awe, I appreciated his honesty.

He prescribed me some cream to make us all fell better about my visit, and then told me to go to a Chinese medicinal herb shop and see what they’ve got. “You never know.” Jesus H.

He also said that sunlight is good for these types of things. “When are you headed back to California?” “I dunno,” I said. He said, “Well, when you do go back, just keep your shirt off the whole time. That should fix you right up.” Great, now I’ll get to be like Randy from Trailer Park Boys whenever I do go back. Awesome show by the way, TPB.

“Oh, and you can pay the receptionist the €60 for your visit.” Yup, €60 to go see the doctor for 13 minutes so I can watch him use Google.