Still working on pictures

I haven't abandoned my blog - just trying to get caught up on all the picture cropping and selecting. I have uploaded quite a few days of albums but still have about 10 to go (all the BIG ones like Berlin with over 700 pictures are still left to do). Ian is helping me with the comments - my idea being to not state the obvious. If the pictures are divided by city (which most are), no need to state the city name over and over and if there are a lot of pictures of one place or building - say Notre Dame for example - then only the first picture will state Notre Dame.

After I am done with the pictures, I will get back to writing some longer prose and am thinking up some TOP TEN lists to do - Top Ten things that I missed about the US - Top Ten Favorite Buildings - Top Ten Silly Signs (or English Translations).

You should be able to access all the albums I have uploaded at this link http://picasaweb.google.com/the.tartan.thistle

Cheerio for now :^)

Back home in Arizona

We had a safe and un-eventful trip back home on Tuesday. I basically slept from Tuesday evening until Thursday morning with only a couple of hours here and there awake but the kids seem to have taken the time change in stride. Sean slept during the day yesterday but that had more to do with the fact that he can't tear himself away from the entertainment on the 10 hour flight to get any sleep.

Even though my plans of keeping up to date on the blog as we went didn't pan out so well, I do plan to "complete" the blog with the highlights of each place we went and the photo albums with in the next week. We took over 7000 pictures on this trip - thank goodness for digital cameras!

Ian and I are off to Salt Lake City next week for about a week and then I return to work after 4th of July weekend.

Only one day left..

We are down to one full day left and half a day and then we'll be home. Hard to believe that 5 weeks have already gone by. We had a quick day in Copenhagen and then on to Amsterdam for the day. We will leave here early tomorrow to go back to London and see a few last sights.

We've had a great time but we are missing home. Moving around every day or two is tiring because we've had to learn a new city layout and find our way around over and over again. And then there is the different languages...we don't know anything except English but you start to pick up the basic words for things..and then you go to a different city in a different country with a different language.

And food..we agreed we are all missing Mexican food. It seems like the only "to-go" food available in most places, other then McDonalds, is hotdogs/sausages and sandwiches. And we rarely go to a sit-down restaurant because it is so much more expensive and it takes soooo long. I know its the European way to take a long time so you can just sit and chat but since we are always either in a hurry to see something or just plain tired, we don't apprecriate waiting and waiting and waiting.

And most of all we miss our friends and family (including the 4 legged members)!

It's nice to be back in a modern city

We arrived in Berlin last night and it felt so nice to be in a "newer" city. Salzburg, Vienna, Budapest and Prague were full of tiny, winding, cobble-stone streets so it was a welcoming site to see the wide, paved streets of Berlin - with big-wide sidewalks. AND we actually have WiFi in our room! I've found that most places say "Internet access" but that this can be as much as Free WiFi in your room to as little as - one computer in the reception, which is a street over from the building you are staying in, and is only accessible 9am to 8pm, and you have to pay to use it!

That's the problem with these low-end places we are staying in - its hit or miss each time. The place in Prague said it had a TV in every room - which it did - and the TV did turn on, but there was no reception at all.

We of course haven't watched much TV anyway - not any time and not much or anything in English in many places. When there have been American shows on in English, they have been the bottom of the barrel - ie. its embarrassing if that's how foreigners see us! In several countries, the only American show on was "Rock of Love" (a reality TV show where a 45 year old rock star tries to pick a mate from a bevy of bimbos).

We have seen quite a few American TV shows dubbed in other languages. Its very strange to see Sponge Bob Square Pants speaking Gaelic, Malcom in the Middle and The Simpsons speaking French, Colombo speaking Italian and the movie Junior, with Danny Devito and Arnold Schwarzenegger in German. Now since Arnold is from Austria, he probably speaks German but the person who dubbed him had a very non-Arnold sounding voice.

As for other "American" influences, its true - we are everywhere. There have been Subways, McDonalds and Starbucks in every city we've been in. KFC and Burger King are also popular. And American/English music is played everywhere! Even street musicians will be playing some American or English song on their instrument. There's an old Doris Day musical called Calamity Jane and she comes back to Deadwood City from Chicago and sings a song..."I just got back from the windy city, the windy city is mighty pretty..." Well, one windy day in Venice, as we were walking past a little shop, I heard the shop owner, in thick Italian accent, start singing that song!

We are off to start our walking tour of Berlin. Again with Sandeman's - we've done their tours in 5 cities now and really enjoy them.

Added Photo Album for London Days 11&12

Slowly catching up on the photos - not much time to blog since Ian keeps us going, going, going! But we are enjoying it! Spending second day in Budapest...on to Prague tonight on the night train.

Photo Albums...try again

I think I have it figured out now...please try the links again, you should be able to get to the photo albums now. And I added the Day9 & 10 album. Sorry for all these "technical difficulties".

....the next day (Day 10)...

We continued on to Loch Ness and yes, I did see Nessie AND got a picture of her with her baby - she was much smaller then I had expected and a little on the thin side. ;^)

Did you know there are Locks on the Lochs? They are for small boats and its all manual - six boats tie-up in the first area - three on each side, then the operator goes to a control panel and shuts the gates behind them, then they slowly release the water and the boat people slowly loosen the rope to allow the boat to lower with the water level. Once that area is equal with the area below, the lower gate is opened and the boat people walk along the edge, down a slope (seen behind Nessie) pulling their boats along with them. Then they start all over, tieing up in the next area - I think there were 5 or 6 total and it took over an hour to get down this small section between two Lochs. Then they do the opposite - transferring 6 boats back up the Loch, and so it continues all day long.
But Nessie wasn't my aim for coming on this tour - I had always wanted to see Eilean Donan Castle. Years ago I had seen a photo of it and just loved it. I'm not sure what is so special about it but I must not be the only one because it is one of the most photographed castles in the world and its fairly remote - not in a big city like Stirling or Edinburgh. I was so happy to be there - not because it was the most super doper castle in the world or even that it was some great achievement, just that it was the culmination of my dream, to come to Scotland. It is still privately owned and maintained and actually is a really neat castle with a fantastic view. It sits where 3 Lochs join and you can see out into the Sea and the Isle of Skye.

But alas, we had to return the Edinburgh. I had a few hours to walk around and got the visit the Monument to my kin (or at least a fellow Clan Scott member), Sir Walter Scott. Before catching the night train back to London to meet Ian and Sean when they came in on my Day 11.

Now where was I...oh yes..back in Scotland

I wrote about Day 7 & 8 in Glasgow - the next two days were spent on a little tour I signed up for just the day before. The guide, Donald McDonald, picked me up in Glasgow, along with 6 other people, and drove us up the west coast. We were in a regular van and I got to ride shot-gun, which was really odd because that meant I was riding in the front left seat (the driver's seat in the US) but there was no wheel or pedals there of course.

We drove up the western side of Scotland and along the way learned about Scottish history from Don - along with more modern trivia. We say the castle that stood in for both the French castle and the castle with all the maids from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. We stopped by Stirling Castle only shortly (didn't go in) and viewed the William Wallace Monument. Donald was not impressed with the accuracy of Brave Heart - for one thing Mel Gibson isn't very tall and the real William Wallace was a giant of a man. On the other hand, Liam Neeson is pretty tall and he played Rob Roy who was rather on the short side.

Along the way we stopped to take a break at a little roadside place, partly so we could meet Hamish. Hamish is a Highland Bull who apparently loves to have his picture taken. He has a large field next to the parking lot but chooses to spend all day standing there waiting for the next person to come by with a camera.

We drove on up into the highlands - it was so beautiful. It rained on and off and there were little waterfalls running down the mountains here and there. We stopped at a well known spot called Glen Coe to view the Three Sisters. Donald took this very personally as the famous massacre at Glen Coe had the Clan Campbell massacring the Clan Donald after having accepted their hospitality for 12 days. This is a big Highland no-no and, according to Donald, the Campbells are the most hated clan in Scotland (hmm...wonder if he's a little prejudice?)

We stopped to see the monument to Robert the Bruce and also got to see both the train and the infamous bridge from Harry Potter fame (although, unfortunately, not at the same time).

We continued up to the Loch area and stayed the night in Fort William on one of the Lochs. The picture with the boats is was the view from my bedroom.

The next day....to be continued

Uploaded Pictures to Web Album for Days 2 to 8

Check out the links at left to my web albums - hopefully it will work correctly this time. There is a different link/album for each day or occasionally two days.
Enjoy!

If its the 23rd day then we must be in Munich...

Things are looking up since we escaped France. The biggest problem we had was getting the trains we needed. Now I know if this was the peak season, we would have to have everything pre-booked but it isn't peak season yet, and I didn't have any problems getting any of the other trains we needed but we had to rearrange our schedules twice - once because we were delayed a day getting over to France (and hence spent time in Dover, which was unplanned) - and a second time when trying to get out of the country. Ian was a quick thinker though and we figured we could do our day in Belgium then (only 1 1/2 hours from Paris) and then go straight from Amsterdam back to London at the end.

Aside from the train schedule, there was an issue with the accommodations. There are several websites that mention staying at Sacre Coeur - that it has a sort of cheap hostel and so I had emailed them, but hadn't heard a reply. Ian really wanted to stay at a church so we decided to just get there and see. So we've had this long day of traveling and we are walking all over Paris with our bags and then we get to the Montmartre area where Sacre Coeur is and ...well to say its the highest point in Paris is an understatement. I was so worn out I didn't even take a picture but here is one from WikiCommons that gives you SOME idea of how many stairs there are...

I would have paid for the little tram but the line was huge! So we walked all the way up....and we can't seem to find anything that mentions this monastery place to sleep. So we wander into the church and I head for the little shop run by nuns there...as I'm approaching, I just catch the tail end of a conversation the nun is having with another American woman.."Oh..and you don't have any recommendations for any place else?"...So instead of asking the nun, I ask the women and she was in the exact same spot as us--saw from the web page that there were cheap beds--but NO they are ONLY for religious retreats...now if I was catholic and on my own, maybe I could pull that off but since I'm not, now its late afternoon, we're all exhausted and we have no place to stay in Paris (which can be extremely expensive).

While Ian explores the crypt I find a little 'i' on my Paris map indicating a tourist information center. So I wander off to find that..now I'm expecting some actual help..maybe that's wrong of me but my experiences to date had shown that people, even those who don't have any job role in working with tourists, are generally very happy to help if you ask. I find the place and after a nice greeting, explain I need to find a hotel room for the night - could they please help me find one? "Over there on the rack, there is a map that shows all the hotels in Montmartre"....and that it! That's all I get - a little hand drawn map with numbers on it and then a list of hotel names (without numbers).

I did try to call but my phone (which i got just for use over here) was not acting right, so we picked up the luggage and traipsed off to one that had a lower price then others. Once we find it, the lady there is very odd...its almost as if she is sizing us up.."You want it for 2 nights?""You want 2 rooms?"(Even though she spoke clear English and I had clearly said 1 night, 1 room, three beds). "No, we don't have nay vacancies" but our hotel across town does. So back on the underground, across town, wander around in circles for quite some time as none of us can make heads or tails of the maps compared to the roads...and FINALLY FIND IT! "You have to take 2 rooms, we don't have any rooms that can fit 3 people"

That's when I lost it....the only time this whole trip that I felt completely overwhelmed. I started to cry! But then I pulled myself together, got out my laptop, used that hotels wifi (although I had to pay for the service), found a hotel, booked it, and we were off again...ironically to a hotel just a block from the train station we had arrived in. But even then, it was really hard to find - like many of the older towns, the street names change every block or two so unless you have a huge map, you don't see all the names.

By that time we were all pretty much hating Paris and our opinions didn't change a whole lot. Guess I'm just not a big city person - if I was from New York, I'm sure I'd feel right at home. And I'm sure a lot of the rudeness comes from the fact that there are so many tourist there all the time - it would annoy me too if I had tourists getting in my way, taking up the space on the subway, etc...all the time.

Now compare that to Belfast (where I also had a hotel snafu) - I had email the "Old Rectory" and thought I was all set, but she was waiting for a call from me with my Visa info, and so ended up giving the room away for the first of the two nights. Not knowing this, I arrive late in the day, again exhausted from traveling and also (stupidly) with no address or number - just a vague idea of where it was on the map of the city. So I get on a bus, and I sit and look and look and then we are past the area it should be in and then we are at the end of the route and I'm still siting there. The bus driver (this is the guy with the thick Irish accent that I couldn't understand at all) - is kind enough to let me stay on, calls into his supervisor who has some idea of where the Old Rectory is, and tells me when I need to get off on the way back. When I get there, and find I have not room, the lady running it quickly emails all the local B&B/guesthouses, finds me a room, calls a cab for me, then gets the hotel to cut $10 off the the price! While I'm waiting she lets me sit in the nice little living room and even offers to keep a bag there for me since I will be returning the next day. Now those are nice people! And of course, they have only had tourist for the last 10 years or less, so maybe they just haven't had time to become callused,

Anyway, didn't mean to go on and on and I need to run now but wanted to give a little detail into why Paris was such a bad experience. And of course there were other things - by far the most smokers, beggars everywhere (we didn't have this in London) and graffiti on everything.

We are in our second day in Munich and will write more later - at a hostel with a room to ourselves and FREE wifi in the lobby. So I hope to write more tonight and finally upload at least some of the pictures. We've taken several thousand and so it takes time to weed through them all and just find the best.

BTW we LOVE Munich also - very organized, easy to get around - can even use our EurRail passes on the S-Bahn which goes to most areas of the city. Today we will get a U-bahn pass for the smaller lines but even that is only 9 EUR for a group of 5 adults for the whole day - VERY cheap.

Sacré bleu!

I won't go into all the details other then to say France has NOT won any allegiances from us. Everything in relation to that country has been a problem - getting there, finding things, getting out of there. The city of Paris itself IS pretty but it is so crowded and everyone smokes and the subway is jammed packed at all times of the day and night and, with a few exceptions, the people ARE rude. In the UK and Ireland, if I had any problems, people were so helpful, but not in Paris.

And along with all the issues we had, I was not able to get WiFi anywhere. The only place around that seemed to have it was....McDonalds..which was also packed all the time. And the one time I tried there, it said their internet was down! We've had to rearrange some plans because we couldn't get the overnight train we wanted out of Paris tonight to Milan, so instead are going to Brussels (only 1 hour 20 minutes away) and will see Brussels and Bruges tomorrow before returning to Paris and hoping on the overinight to Milan then onto Venice.

This nice train has WiFi (which the announcement in English pronounced wee-fee) so I wish the ride was longer! I really have been annoyed by the lack of internet access as so much depends on be being able to get online and make reservations and look things up. Hopefully I will have some time when I actually can connect long enough with a good connection to upload my pics.

In general we are having a great time - wearing ourselves, and particularly our feet, out every day with lots of walking and seeing. All three of us are still well despite almost continuous close contact with millions of people on trains, subways, buses, in museums, etc. And for that I am VERY grateful!

Scotland - at long last, my ultimate destination

Day 7 I ferried over to Scotland and took a train on into Glasgow. I arrived right at rush hour and it is a very big and busy station but beautiful with dark wood shops and glass overhead. There was a large mosaic on one of the walls - and I love mosaics - of the city with a burning train(? odd choice for a train station?).

I walked around town for a little bit and took in all the statues and monuments in George's Square. Here's a little rhyme they teach the school kids here:
Where is the bird that never flew?
Where is the tree that never grew?
Where is the bell that never rang?
Where is the fish that never swam?
The answer is - in the cities emblem which is everywhere.

For dinner that first night in Scotland I had - what else - Haggis. It actually was very good. It came along with Tates (mashed potatoes) and Neeps (mashed rutabagas) plus a whiskey gravy.

The next day I took a hop-on, hop-off tour bus ride around town. Glasgow is very proud of its Charles Rennie Mackintosh history and I visited his house on the grounds of the University - it is very simple but aesthetically pleasing. Really weird on the outside as they moved it here from another place and the external building was not moved with it - it looks like a typical concrete office building except there is a door part way up the wall with no steps or balcony. Then inside it is just as it would have looked.

I also spent a bit of time in the beautiful Glasgow cathedral. "Glasgow Cathedral is the only medieval Cathedral on the Scottish mainland to have survived the Reformation unscathed". And then walked across around the adjoining Necropolis looking at all the many tombs .

The building at left is the Winter garden building - it has a large glass enclosure full of plants. I didn't make it to the Botanical Gardens but I guess they have even more of these interesting glass structures.

Day 6 - Belfast

Day 6 saw me spending the day in Belfast in Northern Ireland. I been a little apprehensive about being in this previously conflicted city but it turned out to be a wonderful city and I would highly recommend it.

It had a wonderful mix of old and new - I toured the (mostly political) murals, saw where Titanic was built (they are VERY proud of that) and wandered the old Shankill Goal (Jail). They have the "Belfast Wheel" like the London Eye - at right next to Central Hall and the largest Celtic cross in Ireland plus numerous new public art works.

Most of the new buildings are all glass since they didn't use glass in any of the buildings prior to the Peace 10 years ago for fear of bombings shattering it. The locals I met all seemed to have a wonderful sense of humor about the past and were all very glad for the peace and the prosperity that came with it.

Ian and Sean have joined me

The boys arrived in London 2 days ago and we've been exploring London. Today we are off to see Stonehenge and Bath then returning to London to catch an overnight train back up to Edinburgh and then on to Stirling before heading to the continent the next day. I'm hoping to catch up with my blog as far as describing where we've been and then have them help me keep up to date but its hard as we don't always have access to WiFi and then when we do, we have lots of trip planning to do - figuring out train routes and where to stay. We may not have any access for the next several days but rest assured I've taken plenty of pictures (several thousand already) that will eventually be posted. CHEERS!

Day 5 - Giants Causeway

I took another tour with Railtours up the East coast of Ireland to Giant's Causeway. Like the Burren in the south of Ireland, this is another amazing site if you like interesting geology. There are thousands of 5 and 6 sides columns of stone. All fitted together like a huge puzzle. It was caused by volcanic eruption.

Then we went to the Carrick-a-rede Rope bridge - that joins a small island off of the coast. It was a very secure bridge but it was also a very windy day and they had had the bridge closed all day until right before we arrived. The whole area was spectacularly beautiful. On the way back, I left the tour in Belfast in Northern Ireland and stayed the night there.

And now..back to my 4th day - Dublin

I went on a fantastic free walking tour with Sandeman tours. They do it strictly for tips. We walked for over 3 hours and Connor, a Senior at Trinity University who was born and raised in Dublin, told us all kinds of interesting facts and stories (notice anything odd about this statue of Justice?). The offer these free walking tours in a dozen cities in Europe and we hope to catch them in Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Edinburgh, London, Munich, Paris and Prague.

After the tour, there wasn't much time left to actually go into anything, so I used the free bus pass for one of those hop-on, hop-off buses that RailTours had given me to see the further reaches of the city that had been too far to walk to. As it got dark, I took a walk along the river and the Temple Bar area (which is what most people come to Dublin for - the drinking).

One nice surprise was the smoking was not allowed in public places including hotels and bars. In a way though, this was a negative for me because I didn't go into any of the bars - I just walked around outside and all the smokers were relegated to standing outside and smoking!

I am off to meet Ian and Sean at the airport but will leave you with one more picture - At left is the oddly painted royal quarters of Dublin Castle which give it an appearance of being fake.

New photo album is having issues

I am removing the link to the photo album until I figure out what it wrong with it. Its on Web Albums so shouldn't be a problem.

Finally off the highlands...my lifelong dream

Still working on catching up with my photos - will continue to add to the albums a limited number from each area (I've take around 1500 picts so far, so I don't think you want to see them ALL!).

Toured Glasgow yesterday and a little the day before (it was about 4:30pm when I arrived on Monday). It has a lot of beautiful architecture but not as much interesting history as Dublin and Belfast. Also, everything is very brown and gray - stone - cement. Could easily imagine what it was like to live here in Victorian times as so little has changed. It hardly seems like I am in Scotland as I could be in any busy, big European city.

But today I leave on a coach (Bus) tour up through the Highlands, stopping at several castles and other sites and then staying the night in Fort William. Tomorrow we continue on to Eilean Donan - a small ruin of a castle on a jetty out into a loch - but it is one I saw a picture of ages ago and fell in love with it - so it is where I have always wanted to go. Afterwards we come back south for a few more stops and end in Edinburgh where I will take the Caledonian Sleeper train (where I have a berth reserved all to myself) back to London overnight. To meet Ian and Sean in Heathrow that afternoon.

Arriving in Scotland as I type this

I am extremely behind on my photo uploading, since I like to go through and crop them and make them look all pretty - and hence I am really far behind on my blog notes. The Last post about SW Ireland was what I did on 5/14. I will catch up later (hopefully) but wanted to let everyone know just generally how its going. I spent the 15th touring Dublin then on the 16th headed up to Northern Ireland - spending that day along the coast and then staying Belfast. Yesterday I toured Belfast and then caught the ferry around Noon today (18th) to Scotland. The ferry had free wifi but I spent the 2 hour trip just working on the pictures! I am landing on the coast and will take a 2 hour train ride to Glasgow where I will be staying tonight.

Over all EVERYONE has been wonderful. The people are friendly and glad to help. I have felt very safe in both Dublin and Belfast. There is very little sign of the past troubles in Belfast and I would highly recommend it as a vacation destination. Here's an interesting fact about each place before I de-bark. In the Republic of Ireland - all public signs are in Irish and English. Kids are all taught Irish in school. In Northern Ireland, some people have an extremely thick accent - different then the regular Irish accent. The public bus driver said whole sentences to me where I couldn't even understand a single word!

Cheers, Tricia

Stairs and Stones in SW Ireland

A pre-arranged tour with RailToursIreland took me to south-western Ireland via Train to Limerick, then by Bus to Bunratty Castle and Folk Village. Bunratty was wonderful - just what every kid thinks of as a Castle. It had 2 main rooms - One above the other - and 4 turrets, each having a tight spiral staircase with a little room coming off at each level. There was also a lovely little folk village where authentic buildings had been relocated.

For lunch at a pub in Doolin, I had a real Irish Coffee and a large wedge of deep-fried Bree. Then we went onto the Cliffs of Moher - getting there just in time to see them before the fog closed in. Although they were beautiful, I was more impressed by the Burren, which I had never heard of. The pictures don't do it justice...its stone that looks exactly like half-melted ice!

We continued onto Galway and caught the train back to Dublin. The countryside looked just as you expected - very green, no trees, stone fences everywhere and the occasional abandoned stone house. They call the stone houses "famine houses" because they were abandoned either by migration or death during the great potato famine. We saw many stone churches that were "deroofed" by King Henry VIII to discourage Catholicism. And cemeteries with scattered stones marking graves from the famine.

Mind The Gap

"Mind The Gap" is on most of the rail platforms in England. It's a warning to pay attention to the void between the platform and the train when loading and unloading. It also was my first lesson-learned about trains - I was trapped, not by the physical gap but the timing gap. After much time wasted by my confusion and the gap between trains and the number of train changes needed, I arrived in Liverpool at 22:20 - missing my 22:00 overnight ferry to Dublin. I knew there was a faster ferry that left from Holyhead at 2:40 in the morning (there aren't any other ferries out of Liverpool except the 7 hour ones). I made it to Holyhead at 2:20 - fortunately the ferry office is connected to the train station and even though it was past loading time, they let me on.

I arrived in Dublin at 6am and took a taxi straight to the train station for my 6:40 tour to Bunratty Castle, The Cliffs of Moher, Burren and Galway with RailTours. Arriving back in Dublin at 9pm and gratefully making my way to my B&B. Other then my own folly in planning, there weren't any problems...well, there was one incident...

I had switched trains in Chester (between Liverpool and Holyhead) and settled down for a nice 1 1/2 hours sleep (I only slept for small snippets of time until I was in the B&B last night). The train was very empty - there was 4 of us in my car and then 2 drunk young men (early 20's) got on. I had just fallen asleep when one of them opened a can of beer (they brought a 6-pack on with them). He managed to spray it over his seat, the seat facing me, and the table and drench my shirt! I guess you could say I've "had" some beer in England ;^)

Using a trip as an excuse to get new gadgets

In preporation for this trip, I have "had" to aquire several new gadgets. The biggest purchase was an MSI Wind Netbook - it weighs only a couple of pounds but the keyboard and screen are not that much smaller then a full-size laptop. It has WiFi so I am hoping to be able to access the internet often. I've loaded tons of information onto it, instead of lugging around a bunch of books and paper notes.

I have a cleaver little plug converter from the Intel Store. Unlike some converters that have a completely different end piece for each type of plug, this one can transform to all different configurations. They don't sell it any more so I hope that doesn't mean it didn't work well!

Besides a plug adapter, I also got a battery recharger - it uses standard batteries to charge re-chargable batteries in cell phones or iPods. AND a solar recharger, which looks like cigarette holder and then opens up to catch the sunlight.

I also got a cell phone that will work over in Europe, a new camera, .....

It's all coming together...

We received our EurRail passes - good for 21 countries for 21 days - and our BritRail passes (darn non-conformists!). We got memberships in Scotland National Trust (good for all the the UK National Trust Sites) and Hostels International. I was also able to get tickets (free but limited) to see the "Ceremony of the keys" at the Tower of London on our very last night of the trip.

The EurRail Passes are good for:

Basic Plans

I leave Phoenix late on May 12th and fly direct to London, Heathrow.  Ian and Sean will follow on May 21st and then we return home together on June 16th.  While I'm there by myself I will be hopping over to Ireland - Dublin and then up the coast. Then back over to Scotland - exploring the Scottish Isles and working my way back to London.

 

When the boys arrive, we will spend a few days in London (the only time we have a hotel reservation) and then making a "loop" of central Europe.  Our plans are flexible but the basic order is this: Paris, Varsielle & Chartres, France; Milan and Venice, Italy; Salzburg, Austria; Munich, Germany; Vienna, Austria; Budapest, Hungary; Prague, Czech Republic; Berlin, Germany; possibly Denmark; Amsterdan, The Netherlands; Brussels and Bruges, Belgium..then back to Britian.  We'll then explore Britian and Glasgow/Edinburgh, Scotland until its time to come back to the States.

I know, you're wondering "Why 'The Tartan Thistle'?" I wanted something unique, easy to remember and spell, that was in some way related to my interests and the trip and didn't have our names in it. This wasn't my first choice but it was the first the wasn't taken!

I plan to post updates to this blog as first I and then Ian, Sean and myself travel on our big Europe trip. I should be able to post pictures as well. You can set it up so that you get an email each time we post if you want or just come and take a look every now and then.

I've never done a blog before - I'll try and make it short and interesting (which may or may not be sweet). ;^)