England/Ireland Highlights: Post 2

One of my favorite things about going from England to Ireland was seeing the dramatic difference in the landscape. And because I hardly suffered from jet lag (miraculously really), I didn't take many car naps and got to enjoy it all. We took an overnight ferry from Wales to Ireland and proceeded to drive across the southern portion of the country to get to the south west peninsula known as the Dingle Peninsula, stopping along the way at cool castles and former monasteries and abbeys. And really, how could you not already love an area called Dingle? It's hilarious.

monastery that I thought was so cool but unfortunately cannot remember the name of

Rock of Cashel, seat of many Irish, medieval monarch, and now mostly just a cemetery, but really cool

the wall at the Rock of Cashel that overlooks the countryside and one of the cool monasteries that surrounds the hill/castle

on the drive around the Dingle Peninsula, unfortunately there was so much fog

Atlantic Ocean view (my cheerleading moves need work apparently...)

city of Dingle harbor, clearly the fog burned off

drive up the western coast of Ireland

cool castle just sitting there on the side of the road as we drove through the country

The saddest part of this trip was that we really wanted to go to the Cliffs of Moher but when we got to the site the fog had set in again and there was zero visibility. Unfortunately for us, everyone said this was the wettest summer in Ireland on record. We had lots of rain (not new for Oregonians) but that meant lots of fog and that was the saddest part. Also, we have zero pictures of Dublin, someone forgot the camera that day... But we took a tour of Trinity College, saw the Book of Kells.

Perhaps I'll start blogging again

The majority of my month of August was spent in England, Ireland and Utah. I came back to my new home in DC with only a week left of the month. I'm over my jet lag, wishing for a new job, and already aching to travel again. Perhaps I'll recap my trip sometime. Just the highlights. Definitely just the highlights.

Speaking of highlights from the trip, we went to Highclere Castle. It's where Downton Abbey is filmed. If you don't watch Downton Abbey, don't you even worry, season 3 starts January 6th. You have PLENTY of time to catch up. You won't regret it.

And Maggie Smith is magnificent. Here's a clip from the upcoming season:

Watch Downton Abbey, Season 3: A Scene from Episode 1 on PBS. See more from Masterpiece.

More silly pictures to come, I'm sure. And now that it's past Labor Day, and I feel like the summer is over (though not quite officially) I can start to reminisce and wish I was still on vacation and wish it was summer all over again. Though, autumn in DC is my favorite time of the year.

Warsaw, Poland

I spent the last few days of my trip in Warsaw which was really kind of like coming home. It's just comfortable.

Highlights include:

• having Ewa meet me at the airport
• walking around Old Town, eating DELICIOUS donuts, and reminiscing my first day in Poland on a cold drizzly day late November 2005
• staying with Nasa and meeting the lovely Dorota
• having fun with Ewa and Robin and getting soaked multiple times since it wasn't ideal weather
• lunch with Emily and Erik 
• going to the grocery store and Tesco (remember I wrote about how much I liked them here? I love them in Poland too.) 
• geeking out at the Warsaw Ghetto walls

Pictures are as follows:
1) Ewa and me on the Stary Rynek (Old Town Square); 2) view from Nasa's apartment, see the Tesco? I was itching to get there. serious; 3) ghetto walls; 4) Lazienki Park and the Chopin statue where we got caught in a serious downpour; 5) Donuts by Nowy Swiat. My favorite besides Chata in Bydgoszcz; 6) meeting Erik and Emily (who is the former Sister Jakobsen) for lunch before they drove north; 7) with Dorota and Nasa after church, picture stolen off Facebook

It was the most wonderful weekend and I couldn't help walking around thinking that I could definitely be an expatriate and live in Poland. 

St. Petersburg, Russia

I've always wanted to go to St. Petersburg. So when planning the trip, I really struggled with using all the vacation I saved up for the year, or missing out on St. Petersburg. Obviously I chose to use up the vacation.

St. Petersburg is huge. So big that we were exhausted from all the walking we did. The metro isn't very convenient either, unless you're right off the stops, and we weren't going to be able to figure out the buses for the 48 hours we were in the city. But we managed to get a feel of the city and we've all decided we'd only come back with a Russian speaker. But that's just us. In order to avoid a marathon post I'm just going to post about my favorite things we did: Church of the Spilled Blood and the Hermitage. We also went to the ballet (Swan Lake) and went to the Modern Russian History Museum (or something like that). 

We loved the Church of the Spilled Blood and it was probably everyone's highlight. It was absolutely gorgeous inside and we spent a good amount of time admiring the mosaics. Yes, every inch of that church is mosaic. I could literally do an entire post about the mosaics because I loved them so much. I won't. I'll just leave you with a few.

On the second day we went to the Hermitage, the giant art museum and former palace of the Romanov family. The building was a gorgeous green, white and gold on the outside and the inside was so ornate with its gold leafing. I think I've seen a lot of art so seeing the state rooms was definitely more exciting than seeing paintings.

I feel like St. Petersburg, and Russia in general are a mystery. Let me know if you have any questions. I will tell you this though, my Polish did not help one bit. No one understood me. I would catch words here and there that I recognized, but knowing words like: good, yes, no, please, and numbers do not really help you understand anything that's going on. Any Russian speakers want to take me back?

Helsinki, Finland

I thought Helsinki was a really cool city. It never really had a Medieval past so the city is pretty modern. We loved Stockman's (the grocery store I posted about here) and the open air food market and were subsequently attacked by seagulls at the market while eating our breakfast there one morning. (One seagull actually took part of a pasty right out of my dad's hand!) We enjoyed the ferry ride out to Suomenlinna, the fortress that protected Helsinki for years. Since my family had already seen a fair amount of Helsinki the day I arrived we took it easy and didn't re-see things. But we did make sure we hit up McDonald's (not really, we got in late and everything else was closed or too expensive for seven people); the LDS Helsinki Temple; and obviously Suomenlinna.

 

My dad must be explaining how the cannon works. I was preoccupied:

I really liked Helsinki.

Tampere, Finland

Cami wanted to be in Tampere for church on Sunday, so we met my brother-in-law Michael at the bus station where he caught a bus from the Helsinki airport. Tampere was the last city Cami lived in and the place where she really wanted to make sure we saw her friends. We drove by her old apartment, and the lake it sat next to; climbed a tower to see the lakes on either side of the city; and had dinner with a cute older lady Cami was friends with and had fun with Maria hanging out with us the whole afternoon. Unfortunately for us Tampere had the worst weather the entire trip and it was the only day we probably could have gone swimming in a Finnish lake.

Vaasa, Finland

As we drove into Vaasa we stopped at the ruined Medieval part of the town. All that was left were the walls of the church. I love walking through ruins. When we got to the city center, we tried to go see a movie but found out the tickets would be about $20 per person. Not worth it. So we went to the grocery store, got bread, cheese, yogurts, juice, fruit and ice cream and watched a movie on TV instead. Thank goodness all the TV stations are in English with Finnish subtitles. It made it really convenient. I feel like a chunk of time spent in Vaasa was walking around. We hoped to pop in the churches in town but none of them were open. We walked through the streets and along the river and stopped to watch part of a soccer tournament. The little kids were so cute and fun to watch (we actually took a bunch of videos, but I find it strange and creepy to post a video of strangers children, even if they probably won't ever see the videos). Then we drove out to see the archipelago and islands before heading off to Tampere.

Rauma, Finland

After Turku we moved onto Rauma, a cute little city on the east coast of Finland, where the buildings are beautifully colored and the people apparently speak Finnish a little differently (but not that anyone but Cami could tell...)

Turku, Finland

My family spent the week before Finland in Sweden so it was coordinated for me to meet them at the Helsinki airport. I flew in and my sisters were waiting for me just beyond baggage claim. From there, I scarfed down bread and cheese and ham and chocolate as we drove to Turku, which was once the capital of Finland before the capital was moved to Helsinki in the 19th Century. The next day we visited the medieval cathedral, toured a preserved village, Turku Castle, took a boat ride to see the islands in the sound, and hit up the local Medieval Festival for dinner. We discovered that we really like the yogurt called rahka (translated to English as something called quark), tried to keep ourselves hydrated and I enjoyed being in Europe again.

It was a really cool city, and a really hot day. We were exhausted from speed walking from the main part of town to the castle and then back to the boat we hoped to catch. All the way we complained about the heat and the speed and the length of the "short walk". I was totally sweaty by the time we got to all our destinations. But at the end of the night we were able to relax on the boat and see the pretty islands and all get sunburned at 9:00 in the evening. I really liked Turku.

Snapshots from Finland

Pictures are from Turku Castle, a ferry ride around the islands, Rauma, Vaasa, Tampere tower overlook and Helsinki.

 All taken on my phone. 

 

Pictures from camera to come as soon as I get on the ball and put them on my computer.

 Can you tell which pictures were taken late at night and which ones weren't?

Take a guess, I'll tell you next time I post which ones were taken after 9.

 

 

p.s. very top right hand picture? check out my mom in the background. shhh... don't tell her I pointed it out, but we got our posing from her.